THE  GRAFTERS 


UNIT.  OF  CALIF.  LIBRARY.  LOS  ANGELES 


"DO   YOU   BEGIN   TO   SUSPECT   THINGS?"   SHE   ASKED 


THE 
GRAFTERS 


BY 

FRANCIS  LYNDE 

AUTHOR  or  "  EMPIBK  BUILDBBS  " 


ILLUSTRATED  BY 

ARTHUR  I.  KELLER 


NEW   YORK 
A.    WESSELS   COMPANY 

1907 


COPYRIGHT  1904 
THE  BOBBS-MERBILL  COMPANY 

APRIL 


PRESS  OF 

BRAUNWORTH  &  CO. 

BOOKBINDERS  AND  PRINTERS 

BROOKLYN,  N.  Y. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I  ASHES  OF  EMPIRE 

II  A  MAN  OF  THE  PEOPLE 

III  THE  BOSTONIANS 

IV  THE  FLESH-POTS  OF  EGYPT 

V  JOURNEYS  END 

VI  OF  THE  MAKING  OF  LAWS 

VII  THE  SENTIMENTALISTS 

VIII  THE  HAYMAKERS 

IX  THE  SHOCKING  OF  HUNNICOTT 

X  WITHOUT  BENEFIT  OF  CLERGY 

XI  THE  LAST  DITCH 

XII  THE  MAN  IN  POSSESSIOK 

XIII  THE  WRECKERS 

XIV  THE  GERRYMANDER 

XV  THE  JUNKETERS 

XVI  SHARPENING  THE  SWORD 

XVII  THE  CONSPIRATORS 

XVIII  DOWN,  BRUNO! 

XIX  DEEP-SEA  SOUNDINGS 

XX  THE  WINNING  LOSER 

XXI  A  WOMAN  INTERVENES 

XXII  A  BORROWED  CONSCIENCE 

XXIII  THE  INSURRECTIONARIKS 

XXIV  INTO  THE  PRIMITIVE 

XXV  DEAD  WATER  AND  QUICK 

XXVI  ON  THE  HIGH  PLAINS 

XXVII  BY  ORDER  OF  THE  COURT 

XXVIII  THE  NIGHT  OF  ALARMS 

XXIX  THE  RELENTLESS  WHEELS 

XXX  SUBHI  SADIK 


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2130881 


TO  MY  GOOD  FRIEND 
MR.  EDWARD  YOUNG  CHAPIN 


THE  GRAFTERS 


ASHES   OF  EMPIEE 

In  point  of  age,  Gaston  the  strenuous  was  still  no 
more  than  a  lusty  infant  among  the  cities  of  the  brown 
plain  when  the  boom  broke  and  the  junto  was  born, 
though  its  beginnings  as  a  halt  camp  ran  back  to  the 
days  of  the  later  Mormon  migrations  across  the  thirsty 
plain;  to  that  day  when  the  advanced  guard  of  Zophar 
Smith's  ox-train  dug  wells  in  the  damp  sands  of  Dry 
Creek  and  called  them  the  Waters  of  Merom. 

Later,  one  Jethro  Simsby,  a  Mormon  deserter,  set  up 
his  rod  and  staff  on  the  banks  of  the  creek,  homesteaded 
a  quarter-section  of  the  sage-brush  plain,  and  in  due 
time  came  to  be  known  as  the  Dry  Creek  cattle  king. 
And  the  cow-camp  was  still  Simsby's  when  the  locating 
engineers  of  the  Western  Pacific,  searching  for  tank 
stations  in  a  land  where  water  was  scarce  and  hard  to 

(1) 


2  THE    GBAFTERS 

come  by,  drove  their  stakes  along  the  north  line  of  the 
quarter-section;  and  having  named  their  last  station 
Alphonse,  christened  this  one  Gaston. 

From  the  stake-driving  of  the  engineers  to  the  spike- 
driving  of  the  track-layers  was  a  full  decade.  For  hard 
times  overtook  the  Western  Pacific  at  Midland  City, 
eighty  miles  to  the  eastward;  while  the  State  capital, 
two  days'  bronco-jolting  west  of  Dry  Creek,  had  rail- 
road outlets  in  plenty  and  no  inducements  to  offer  a 
new-comer. 

But,  with  the  breaking  of  the  cloud  of  financial  de- 
pression, the  Western  Pacific  succeeded  in  placing  its 
extension  bonds,  and  a  little  later  the  earth  began  to  fly 
on  the  grade  of  the  new  line  to  the  west.  Within  a 
Sundayless  month  the  electric  lights  of  the  night  shift 
could  be  seen,  and,  when  the  wind  was  right,  the  shriek 
of  the  locomotive  whistle  could  be  heard  at  Dry  Creek ; 
and  in  this  interval  between  dawn  and  daylight  Jethro 
Simsby  sold  his  quarter-section  for  the  nominal  sum  of 
two  thousand  dollars,  spot  cash,  to  two  men  who  buck- 
boarded  in  ahead  of  the  track-layers. 

This  purchase  of  the  "J-lazy-S"  ranch  by  Hawk  and 
Guilford  marked  the  modest  beginning  of  Gaston  the 
marvelous.  By  the  time  the  temporary  sidings  were 
down  and  the  tank  well  was  dug  in  the  damp  sands,  it 
was  heralded  far  and  wide  that  the  Western  Pacific 
would  make  the  city  on  the  banks  of  Dry  Creek — a  city 


ASHES'   OF   EMPIRE  3 

consisting  as  yet  only  of  the  Simsby  ranch  shacks — its 
western  terminus.  Thereupon  followed  one  of  the  sense- 
less rushes  that  populate  the  waste  places  of  the  earth 
and  give  the  professional  city-builder  his  reason  for 
being.  In  a  fortnight  after  the  driving  of  the  silver 
spike  the  dusty  plain  was  dotted  with  the  black-roofed 
shelters  of  the  Argonauts;  and  by  the  following  spring 
the  plow  was  furrowing  the  cattle  ranges  in  ever-widen- 
ing circles,  and  Gaston  had  voted  a  bond  loan  of  three 
hundred  thousand  dollars  to  pave  its  streets. 

Then  under  the  forced  draft  of  skilful  exploitation, 
three  years  of  high  pressure  passed  quickly;  years 
named  by  the  promoters  the  period  of  development. 
In  the  Year  One  the  very  heavens  smiled  and  the 
rainfall  broke  the  record  of  the  oldest  inhabitant. 
Thus  the  region  round  about  lost  the  word  "arid"  as 
a  qualifying  adjective,  and  the  picturesque  fictions  of 
the  prospectus  makers  were  miraculously  justified.  In 
Year  Two  there  was  less  rain,  but  still  an  abundant 
crop;  and  Jethro  Simsby,  drifting  in  from  some  un- 
named frontier  of  a  newer  cow-country,  saw  what  he 
had  missed,  took  to  drink,  and  shot  himself  in  the 
lobby  of  the  Mid-Continent  Hotel,  an  ornate,  five- 
storied,  brick-and-terra-cotta  structure  standing  pre- 
cisely upon  the  site  of  the  "J-lazy-S'"  branding  corral. 

It  was  in  this  same  Year  Two,  the  fame  of  the 
latest  of  western  Meccas  for  young  men  having  pene- 


4  THE   GRAFTERS 

trated  to  the  provincial  backgrounds  of  New  Hamp- 
shire, that  David  Kent  came. 

By  virtue  of  his  diploma,  and  three  years  of  coun- 
try practice  in  the  New  Hampshire  county  town  where 
his  father  before  him  had  read  Blackstone  and  Chitty, 
he  had  his  window  on  the  fourth  floor  of  the  Farquhar 
Building  lettered  "Attorney  and  Counselor  at  Law"; 
but  up  to  the  day  in  the  latter  part  of  the  fateful  Year 
Three,  when  the  overdue  crash  came,  he  was  best  known 
as  a  reckless  plunger  in  real  estate — this,  mind  you, 
at  a  moment  when  every  third  man  counted  his  gains 
in  "front  feet",  and  was  shouting  himself  hoarse  at  the 
daily  brass-band  lot  sales. 

When  the  bottom  fell  out  in  the  autumn  of  Year 
Three,  Kent  fell  with  it,  though  not  altogether  as  far 
or  as  hard  as  many  another.  One  of  his  professional 
hold-fasts — it  was  the  one  that  afterward  became  the 
bread-tackle  in  the  famine  time — was  his  position  as  lo- 
cal attorney  for  the  railway  company.  By  reason  of  this 
he  was  among  the  first  to  have  a  hint  of  the  impend- 
ing cataclysm.  The  Western  Pacific,  after  so  long  a 
pause  on  the  banks  of  Dry  Creek,  had  floated  its  second 
mortgage  bonds  and  would  presently  build  on  to  the 
capital,  leaving  Gaston  to  way-station  quietude.  There- 
fore and  wherefore — 

Kent  was  not  lacking  in  native  shrewdness  or  energy. 
He  foresaw,  not  the  pitiable  bubble-burst  which  en- 


ASHES'   OF   EMPIEE  5 

sued,  indeed,  but  the  certain  and  inevitable  end  of  the 
speculative  era.  Like  every  one  else,  he  had  bought 
chiefly  with  promises  to  pay,  and  his  paper  in  the 
three  banks  aggregated  a  sum  equal  .to  a  frugal  New 
Hampshire  competence. 

"How  long  have  I  got?"  was  the  laconic  wire  which 
he  sent  to  Loring,  the  secretary  of  the  Western  Pacific 
Advisory  Board  in  Boston,  from  whom  his  hint  had 
come.  And  when  Loring  replied  that  the  grading  and 
track-laying  contracts  were  already  awarded,  there  was 
at  least  one  "long"  on  the  Gaston  real  estate  exchange 
who  wrought  desperately  night  and  day  to  "unload". 

As  it  turned  out,  the  race  against  time  was  both  a 
victory  and  a  defeat.  On  the  morning  when  the  Daily 
Clarion  sounded  the  first  note  of  public  alarm,  David 
Kent  took  up  the  last  of  his  bank  promises-to-pay,  and 
transferred  his  final  mortgaged  holding  in  Gaston 
realty.  When  it  was  done  he  locked  himself  in  his  office 
in  the  Farquhar  Building  and  balanced  the  account.  On 
leaving  the  New  Hampshire  country  town  to  try  the  new 
cast  for  fortune  in  the  golden  West,  he  had  turned  his 
small  patrimony  into  cash — some  ten  thousand  dollars 
of  it.  To  set  over  against  the  bill  of  exchange  for  this 
amount,  which  he  had  brought  to  Gaston  a  year  earlier, 
there  were  a  clean  name,  a  few  hundred  dollars  in  bank, 
six  lots,  bought  and  paid  for,  in  one  of  the  Gaston 
suburbs,  and  a  vast  deal  of  experience. 


6  THE   GKAFTEKS 

Kent  ran  his  hands  through  his  hair,  opened  the 
check-book  and  hastily  filled  out  a  check  payable  to 
himself  for  the  remaining  few  hundreds.  When  he 
reached  the  Apache  National  on  the  corner  of  Colorado 
and  Texas  Streets,  he  was  the  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
seventh  man  in  the  queue,  which  extended  around  the 
corner  and  doubled  back  and  forth  in  the  cross-street 
to  the  stoppage  of  all  traffic.  The  announcement  in 
the  Clarion  had  done  its  work,  and  the  baleful  flower 
of  panic,  which  is  a  juggler's  rose  for  quick-growing 
possibilities,  was  filling  the  very  air  of  the  street  with 
its  acrid  perfume — the  scent  of  all  others  that  soonest 
drives  men  mad. 

Major  James  Guilford,  the  president  of  the  Apache 
National,  was  in  the  cage  with  the  sweating  paying 
tellers,  and  it  was  to  him  that  Kent  presented  his  check 
when  his  turn  came. 

"What!  You,  too,  Kent?"  said  the  president,  re- 
proachfully. "I  thought  you  had  more  backbone." 

Kent  shook  his  head. 

"Gaston  has  absorbed  nine-tenths  of  the  money  I 
brought  here;  I'll  absorb  the  remaining  tenth  myself, 
if  it's  just  the  same  to  you,  Major.  Thank  you."  And 
the  hundred  and  twenty-seventh  man  pocketed  his  sal- 
vage from  the  wreck  and  fought  his  way  out  through 
the  jam  at  the  doors.  Two  hours  farther  along  in  the 


ASHES    OF   EMPIRE  «? 

forenoon  the  Apache  National  suspended  payment,  and 
the  bank  examiner  was  wired  for. 

For  suddenness  and  thoroughgoing  completeness  the 
Gaston  bubble-bursting  was  a  record-breaker.  For  & 
week  and  a  day  there  was  a  frantic  struggle  for  enlarge- 
ment, and  by  the  expiration  of  a  fortnight  the  life  was 
pretty  well  trampled  out  of  the  civic  corpse  and  the 
stench  began  to  arise. 

Flight  upon  any  terms  then  became  the  order  of  the 
day,  and  if  the  place  had  been  suddenly  plague-smitten 
the  panicky  exodus  could  scarcely  have  been  more  head- 
long. None  the  less,  in  any  such  disorderly  up-anchor- 
ing there  are  stragglers  perforce :  some  left  like  strand- 
ed hulks  by  the  ebbing  tide;  others  riding  by  mooring 
chains  which  may  be  neither  slipped  nor  ,capstaned. 
When  all  was  over  there  were  deserted  streets  and 
empty  suburbs  in  ruthless  profusion;  but  there  was  also 
a  hungry  minority  of  the  crews  of  the  stranded  and  an- 
chored hulks  left  behind  to  live  or  die  as  they  might, 
and  presently  to  fall  into  cannibalism,  preying  one  upon 
another  between  whiles,  or  waiting  like  their  prototypes 
of  the  Spanish  Main  for  the  stray  spoils  of  any  luckless 
argosy  that  might  drift  within  grappling  distance. 

Kent  stayed  partly  because  a  local  attorney  for  the 
railroad  was  as  necessary  in  Gaston  the  bereaved  as  in 
Gaston.  the  strenuous;  partly,  also,  because  he  was  a 


8  THE   GKAFTEKS 

student  of  his  kind,  and  the  broken  city  gave  him  labor- 
atory opportunities  for  the  study  of  human  nature  at 
its  worst. 

He  marked  the  raising  of  the  black  flag  as  the  Gaston 
castaways,  getting  sorrily  afloat  one  by  one,  cleared  their 
decks  for  action.  Some  Bluebeard  admiral  there  will 
always  be  for  such  stressful  occasions,  and  David  Kent, 
standing  aside  and  growing  cynical  day  by  day,  laid 
even  chances  on  Hawk,  the  ex-district  attorney,  on 
Major  Guilford,  and  on  one  Jasper  G.  Bucks,  sometime 
mayor  of  Gaston  the  iridescent. 

Afterward  he  was  to  learn  that  he  had  underrated 
the  gifts  of  the  fprmer  mayor.  For  when  the  famine 
time  was  fully  come,  and  there  were  no  more  argosies 
drifting  Gastonward  for  the  bucaneers  to  sack  and 
scuttle,  it  was  Jasper  G.  Bucks  who  called  a  conference 
of  his  fellow  werwolves,  set  forth  his  new  cast  for  for- 
tune, and  brought  the  junto,  the  child  of  sheer  despera- 
tion fiercely  at  bay,  into  being. 

It  was  in  the  autumn  of  that  first  cataclysmic  year 
that  Secretary  Loring,  traveling  from  Boston  to  the 
State  capital  on  a  mission  for  the  Western  Pacific, 
stopped  over  a  train  with  Kent.  After  a  rather  dis- 
piriting dinner  in  the  deserted  Mid-Continent  cafe,  and 
some  plowing  of  the  field  of  recollection  in  Kent's 
rooms  in  the  Farquhar  Building,  they  took  the  deserted 


ASHES'   OF   EMPIRE  9 

street  in  the  golden  twilight  to  walk  to  the  railway  sta- 
tion. 

"It  was  a  decent  thing  for  you  to  do — stopping  over 
a  train  with  me,  Grantham,"  said  the  host,  when  the 
five  squares  intervening  had  been  half  measured.  "I 
have  had  all  kinds  of  a  time  out  here  in  this  God-for- 
saken desert,  but  never  until  to-day  anything  approach- 
ing a  chummy  hour  with  a  man  I  know  and  care  for." 

Kent  had  not  spoken  since  they  had  felt  their  way 
out  of  the  dark  lower  hall  of  the  Farquhar  Building. 
Up  to  this  point  the  talk  had  been  pointedly  reminis- 
cent; of  the  men  of  their  university  year,  of  mutual 
friends  in  the  far-away  "God's  country"  to  the  east- 
ward, of  the  Gastonian  epic,  of  all  things  save  only 
two — the  exile's  cast  for  fortune  in  the  untamed  West, 
and  one  other. 

"That  brings  us  a  little  nearer  to  the  things  that 
be — and  to  your  prospects,  David,"  said  the  guest. 
"How  are  you  fixed  here  ?" 

Kent  shrugged. 

"Gaston  is  dead,  as  you  see;  too  dead  to  bury." 

"Why  don't  you  get  out  of  it,  then?" 

"I  shall  some  day,  perhaps.  Up  to  date  there  has 
been  no  place  to  go  to,  and  no  good  way  to  arrive.  Like 
some  thousands  of  others,  I've  made  an  ass  of  myself 
here,  Loring." 


10  THE   GRAFTERS 

"By  coining,  you  mean?  Oh,  I  don't  know  about 
that.  You  have  had  some  hard  knocks,  I  take  it,  but  if 
you  are  the  same  David  Kent  I  used  to  know,  they  have 
made  a  bigger  man  of  you." 

"Think  so?" 

"I'd  bet  on  it.  We  have  had  the  Gaston  epic  done 
out  for  us  in  the  newspapers.  No  man  could  live 
through  such  an  experience  as  you  must  have  had  with- 
out growing  a  few  inches.  Hello !  What's  this  ?" 

A  turned  corner  had  brought  them  in  front  of  a 
lighted  building  in  Texas  Street  with  a  straggling 
crowd  gathered  about  the  porticoed  entrance.  As  Lor- 
ing  spoke,  there  was  a  rattle  of  snare  drums  followed 
by  the  dum-dum  of  the  bass,  and  a  brass  band  ramped 
out  the  opening  measures  of  a  campaign  march. 

"It  is  a  rally,"  said  Kent,  when  they  had  passed  far 
enough  beyond  the  zone  of  brass-throated  clamorings 
to  make  the  reply  audible.  "I  told  you  that  the  Gaston 
wolf-pack  had  gone  into  politics.  We  are  in  the  throes 
of  a  State  election,  and  there  is  to  be  a  political  speech- 
making  at  tKe  Opera  House  to-night,  with  Bucks  in 
the  title  role.  And  there  is  a  fair  measure  of  the  dead- 
ness  of  the  town!  When  you  see  people  flock  together 
like  that  to  hear  a  brass  band  play,  it  means  one  of  two 
things:  that  the  town  hasn't  outgrown  the  country 
village  stage,  or  else  it  has  passed  that  and  all  other 
stages  and  is  well  on  its  way  to  the  cemetery." 


ASHES'  OF   EMPIEE  11 

"That  is  one  way  of  putting  it,"  Loring  rejoined. 
"If  things  are  as  bad  as  that,  it's  time  you  were  moving 
on,  don't  you  think  ?" 

"I  guess  so,"  was  the  lack-luster  response.  "Only  I 
don't  know  where  to  go,  or  what  to  do  when  I  get 
there." 

They  were  crossing  the  open  square  in  front  of  the 
wide-eaved  passenger  station.  A  thunderous  tremolo, 
dominating  the  distant  band  music,  thrilled  on  the  still 
air,  and  the  extended  arm  of  the  station  semaphore  with 
its  two  dangling  lanterns  wagged  twice. 

"My  train,"  said  Loring,  quickening  his  step. 

"No,"  Kent  corrected.  "It  is  a  special  from  the 
west,  bringing  a  Bucks  crowd  to  the  political  rally. 
Number  Three  isn't  due  for  fifteen  minutes  yet,  and 
she  is  always  late." 

They  mounted  the  steps  to  the  station  platform  in 
good  time  to  meet  the  three-car  special  as  it  came 
clattering  in  over  the  switches,  and  presently  found 
themselves  in  the  thick  of  the  crowd  of  debarking  ralli- 
ers. 

It  was  a  mixed  masculine  multitude,  fairly  typical 
of  time,  place  and  occasion;  stalwart  men  of  the  soil 
for  the  greater  part,  bearded  and  bronzed  and  rough- 
clothed,  with  here  and  there  a  range-rider  in  pictur- 
esque leathern  shaps,  sagging  pistols  and  wide-flapped 
sombrero. 


12  THE    GEAFTEES 

Loring  stood  aside  and  put  up  his  eye-glasses.  It  was 
his  first  sight  near  at  hand  of  the  untrammeled  West 
in  puris  naturalibus,  and  he  was  finding  the  spectacle 
both  instructive  and  diverting.  Looking  to  Kent  for 
fellowship  he  saw  that  his  companion  was  holding  him- 
self stiffly  aloof;  also,  he  remarked  that  none  of  the 
boisterous  partizans  flung  a  word  of  recognition  in 
Kent's  direction. 

"Don't  you  know  any  of  them?"  he  asked. 

Kent's  reply  was  lost  in  the  deep-chested  bull-bellow 
of  a  cattleman  from  the  Eio  Blanoo. 

"Hold  on  a  minute,  boys,  before  you  scatter!  Line 
up  here,  and  let's  give  three  cheers  and  a  tail-twister 
for  next-Governor  Bucks!  Now,  then — everybody! 
Hip,  hip—" 

The  ripping  crash  of  the  cheer  jarred  Loring's  eye- 
glasses from  their  hold,  and  he  replaced  them  with  a 
smile.  Four  times  the  ear-splitting  shout  went  up,  and 
as  the  echoes  of  the  "tiger"  trailed  off  into  silence  the 
stentorian  voice  was  lifted  again. 

"Good  enough!  Now,  then;  three  groans  for  the 
land  syndicates,  alien  mortgagees,  and  the  Western  Pa- 
cific Eailroad,  by  grabs !  and  to  hell  with  'em !" 

The  responsive  clamor  was  a  thing  to  be  acutely  re- 
membered— sustained,  long-drawn,  vindictive;  a  nerve- 
wrenching  pandemonium  of  groans,  yelpings  and  cat- 


ASHES'  OF   EMPIKE  13 

calls,  in  the  midst  of  which  the  partizans  shuffled  into 
loose  marching  order  and  tramped  away  townward. 

"That  answers  your  question,  doesn't  it?"  said  Kent, 
smiling  sourly.  "If  not,  I  can  set  it.  out  for  you  in 
words.  The  Western  Pacific  is  the  best-hated  corpora- 
tion this  side  of  the  Mississippi,  and  I  am  its  local  at- 
torney." 

"I  don't  envy  you,"  said  Loring.  "I  had  no  idea  the 
opposition  crystallized  itself  in  any  such  concrete  ill 
will.  You  must  have  the  whole  weight  of  public  senti- 
ment against  you  in  any  railroad  litigation." 

"I  do,"  said  Kent,  simply.  "If  every  complainant 
against  us  had  the  right  to  pack  his  own  jury,  we 
couldn't  fare  worse." 

"What  is  at  the  bottom  of  it  ?  Is  it  our  pricking  of 
the  Gaston  bubble  by  building  on  to  the  capital?" 

"Oh,  no;  it's  much  more  personal  to  these  shouters. 
As  you  may,  or  may  not,  know,  our  line — like  every 
other  western  railroad  with  no  competition — has  for 
its  motto,  'All  the  tariff  the  traffic  will  stand/  and  it 
bleeds  the  country  accordingly.  But  we  are  forgetting 
your  train.  Shall  we  go  and  see  how  late  it  is  ?" 


II 

• 
A  MAN  OF  THE  PEOPLE 

Train  Number  Three,  the  Western  Flyer,  was  late, 
as  Kent  had  predicted — just  how  late  the  operator 
could  not  tell;  and  pending  the  chalking-up  of  its  ar- 
riving time  on  the  bulletin  board,  the  two  men  sat  on 
an  empty  baggage  tru.ck  and  smoked  in  companionable 
silence. 

While  they  waited,  Loring's  thoughts  were  busy  with 
many  things,  friendly  solicitude  for  the  exile  serving 
as  the  point  of  departure.  He  knew  what  a  handfast 
friend  might  know:  how  Kent  had  finished  his  post- 
graduate course  in  the  law  and  had  succeeded  to  his 
father's  small  practice  in  the  New  Hampshire  county 
town  where  he  was  born  and  bred.  Also,  he  knew  how 
Kent's  friends,  college  friends  who  knew  his  gifts  and 
ability,  had  deprecated  the  burial;  and  he  himself  had 
been  curious  enough  to  pay  Kent  a  visit  to  spy  out  the 
reason  why.  On  their  first  evening  together  in  the 
stuffy  little  law  office  which  had  been  his  father's,  Kent 


A   MAN   OF   THE   PEOPLE  15 

had  made  a  clean  breast  of  it :  there  was  a  young  woman 
in  the  case,  and  a  promise  passed  before  Kent  had  gone 
to  college.  She  was  a  farmer's  daughter,  with  no  notion 
for  a  change  of  environment;  wherefore  she  had  de- 
termined Kent's  career  and  the  scene  of  it,  laying  its 
lines  in  the  narrow  field  of  her  own  choosing. 

Later,  as  Loring  knew,  the  sentimental  anchor  had 
dragged  until  it  was  hopelessly  off  holding-ground. 
The  young  woman  had  laid  the  blame  at  the  door  of  the 
university,  had  given  Kent  a  bad  half-year  of  fault- 
finding and  recrimination,  and  had  finally  made  an  end 
of  the  matter  by  bestowing  her  dowry  of  hillside  acres 
on  the  son  of  a  neighboring  farmer. 

Thereafter  Kent  had  stagnated  quietly,  living  with 
simple  rigor  the  life  he  had  marked  out  for  himself; 
thankful  at  heart,  Loring  had  suspected,  for  the  timely 
intervention  of  the  farmer's  son,  but  holding  himself 
well  in  hand  against  a  repetition  of  the  sentimental  of- 
fense. All  this  until  the  opening  of  the  summer  hotel 
at  the  foot  of  Old  Croydon,  and  the  coming  of  Elinor 
Brentwood. 

No  one  knew  just  how  much  Miss  Brentwood  had  to 
do  with  the  long-delayed  awakening  of  David  Kent; 
but  in  Loring's  forecastings  she  enjoyed  the  full  benefit 
of  the  doubt.  From  tramping  the  hills  alone,  or  whip- 
ping the  streams  for  brook  trout,  David  had  taken  to 
spending  his  afternoons  with  lover-like  regularity  at 


16  THE   GRAFTERS 

the  Croydon  Inn;  and  at  the  end  of  the  season  had 
electrified  the  sleepy  home  town  by  declaring  his  in- 
tention to  go  West  and  grow  up  with  the  country. 

In  Loring's  setting-forth  of  the  awakening,  the  mo- 
tive was  not  far  to  seek.  Miss  Brentwood  was  ambi- 
tious, and  if  her  interest  in  Kent  had  been  only  casual 
she  would  not  have  been  likely  to  point  him  to  the 
wider  battle-field.  Again,  apart  from  his  modest  patri- 
mony, Kent  had  only  his  profession.  The  Brentwoods 
were  not  rich,  as  riches  are  measured  in  millions;  but 
they  lived  in  their  own  house  in  the  Back  Bay  wilder- 
ness, moved  in  Boston's  older  substantial  circle,  and,  in 
a  world  where  success,  economic  or  other,  is  in  some 
sort  the  touchstone,  were  many  social  planes  above  a 
country  lawyer. 

Loring  knew  Kent's  fierce  poverty-pride — none  bet- 
ter. Hence,  he  was  at  no  loss  to  account  for  the  exile's 
flight  afield,  or  for  his  unhopeful  present  attitude. 
Meaning  to  win  trophies  to  lay  at  Miss  Brentwood's 
feet,  the  present  stage  of  the  rough  joust  with  Fortune 
found  him  unhorsed,  unweaponed  and  rolling  in  the 
dust  of  the  lists. 

Loring  chewed  his  cigar  reflectively,  wishing  his  com- 
panion would  open  the  way  to  free  speech  on  the  sub- 
ject presumably  nearest  his  heart.  He  had  a  word  of 
comfort,  negative  comfort,  to  offer,  but  it  might  not 
be  said  until  Kent  should  give  him  leave  by  taking  the 


A   MAN   OF   THE    PEOPLE  17 

initiative.  Kent  broke  silence  at  last,  but  the  promp- 
ting was  nothing  more  pertinent  than  the  chalking-up 
of  the  delayed  train's  time. 

"An  hour  and  twenty  minutes :  that  means  any  time 
after  nine  o'clock.  I'm  honestly  sorry  for  you,  Gran- 
tham — sorry  for  any  one  that  has  to  stay  in  this  charnel- 
house  of  a  town  ten  minutes  after  he's  through.  What 
will  you  do  with  yourself  ?" 

Loring  got  up,  looked  at  his  watch,  and  made  a  sug- 
gestion, hoping  that  Kent  would  fall  in  with  it. 

"I  don't  know.  Shall  we  go  back  to  your  rooms  and 
sit  a  while?" 

The  exile's  eyes  gloomed  suddenly. 

"Not  unless  you  insist  on  it.  We  should  get  back 
among  the  relics  and  I  should  bore  you.  I'm  not  the 
man  you  used  to  know,  Grantham." 

"No  ?"  said  Loring.  "I  sha'n't  be  hypocritical  enough 
to  contradict  you.  Nevertheless,  you  are  my  host.  It 
is  for  you  to  say  what  you  will  do  with  me  until  train 
time." 

"We  can  kill  an  hour  at  the  rally,  if  you  like.  You 
have  seen  the  street  parade  and  heard  the  band  play:  it 
is  only  fair  that  you  should  see  the  menagerie  on  ex- 
hibition." 

Loring  found  his  match-box  and  made  a  fresh  light 
for  his  cigar. 

"It's  pretty  evident  that  you  and  'next-Governor' 


18  THE   GEAFTEES 

Bucks  are  on  opposite  sides  of  the  political  fence,"  he 
observed. 

"We  are.  I  should  think  a  good  bit  less  of  myself 
than  I  do — and  that's  needless — if  I  trained  in  his 
company." 

"Yet  you  will  give  him  a  chance  to  make  a  partizan 
of  me  ?  Well,  come  along.  Politics  are  not  down  on  my 
western  programme,  but  I'm  here  to  see  all  the  new 
things." 

The  Gaston  Opera  House  was  a  survival  of  the  flush 
times,  and  barring  a  certain  tawdriness  from  disuse  and 
neglect,  and  a  rather  garish  effect  which  marched  evenly 
with  the  brick-and-terra-cotta  fronts  in  Texas  Street 
and  the  American-Tudor  cottages  of  the  suburbs,  it  was 
a  creditable  relic.  The  auditorium  was  well  filled  in  pit, 
dress-circle  and  gallery  when  Kent  and  his  guest  edged 
tKeir  way  through  the  standing  committee  in  the  foyer ; 
but  by  dint  of  careful  searching  they  succeeded  in  find- 
ing two  seats  well  around  to  the  left,  with  a  balcony 
pillar  to  separate  them  from  their  nearest  neighbors. 

Since  the  public  side  of  American  politics  varies  little 
with  the  variation  of  latitude  or  longitude,  the  man  from 
the  East  found  himself  at  once  in  homely  and  remindful 
surroundings.  There  was  the  customary  draping  of 
flags  under  the  proscenium  arch  and  across  the  set-piece 
villa  of  the  background.  In  the  semicircle  of  chairs 
arched  from  wing  to  wing  sat  the  local  and  visiting 


A   MAN   OF   THE   PEOPLE  19 

political  lights;  men  of  all  trades,  these,  some  of  them 
a  little  shamefaced  and  ill  at  ease  by  reason  of  their 
unwonted  eonspicuity;  all  of  them  listening  with  a 
carefully  assumed  air  of  strained  attention  to  the 
speaker  of  the  moment. 

Also,  there  was  the  characteristic  ante-election  audi- 
ence, typical  of  all  America — the  thing  most  truly  typi- 
cal in  a  land  where  national  types  are  sought  for  mi- 
croscopically :  wheel-horses  who  came  at  the  party  call ; 
men  who  came  in  the  temporary  upblaze  of  enthusiastic 
patriotism,  which  is  lighted  with  the  opening  of  the  cam- 
paign, and  which  goes  out  like  a  candle  in  a  gust  of 
wind  the  day  after  the  election;  men  who  came  to  ap- 
plaud blindly,  and  a  few  who  came  to  cavil  and  deride. 
Loring  oriented  himself  in  a  leisurely  eye-sweep,  and 
so  came  by  easy  gradations  to  the  speaker. 

Measured  by  the  standard  of  fitness  for  his  office  of 
prolocutor  the  man  standing  beside  the  stage-properties 
speaker's  desk  was  worthy  a  second  glance.  He  was 
dark,  undersized,  trimly  built;  with  a  Vandyke  beard 
clipped  closely  enough  to  show  the  lines  of  a  bull-dog 
jaw,  and  eyes  that  had  the  gift,  priceless  to  the  public 
speaker,  of  seeming  to  hold  every  onlooking  eye  in  the 
audience.  Unlike  his  backers  in  the  awkward  semi- 
circle, he  wore  a  professional  long  coat;  and  the  hands 
that  marked  his  smoothly  flowing  sentences  were  slim 
and  shapely. 


20  THE   GRAFTERS 

"Who  is  he?"  asked  Loring,  in  an  aside  to  Kent. 

"Stephen  Hawk,  the  ex-district  attorney:  boomer, 
pettifogger,  promoter — a  charter  member  of  the  Gas- 
ton  wolf-pack.  A  man  who  would  persuade  you  into 
believing  in  the  impeccability  of  Satan  in  one  breath, 
and  knife  you  in  the  back  for  a  ten-dollar  bill  in  the 
next/'  was  the  rejoinder. 

Loring  nodded,  and  again  became  a  listener.  Hawk's 
speech  was  merely  introductory,  and  it  was  nearing  its 
peroration. 

"Fellow  citizens,  this  occasion  is  as  auspicious  as  it 
is  significant.  When  the  people  rise  in  their  might 
to  say  to  tyranny  in  whatsoever  form  it  oppresses  them, 
'Thus  far  and  no  farther  shalt  thou  go/  the  night  is  far 
spent  and  the  light  is  breaking  in  the  east. 

"Since  the  day  when  we  first  began  to  wrest  with  com- 
pelling hands  the  natural  riches  from  the  soil  of  this 
our  adoptive  State,  political  trickery  in  high  places, 
backed  by  the  puissant  might  of  alien  corporations,  has 
ground  us  into  the  dust. 

"But  now  the  time  of  our  deliverance  is  at  hand. 
Great  movements  give  birth  to  great  leaders;  and 
in  this,  our  holy  crusade  against  oppression  and 
tyranny,  the  crisis  has  bred  the  man.  Ladies  and 
gentlemen,  I  have  the  pleasure  of  presenting  to  you 
the  speaker  of  the  evening:  our  friend  and  fellow 
citizen  the  Honorable  Jasper  G.  Bucks,  by  the  grace  of 


A   MAN   OF   THE    PEOPLE  21 

God,  and  your  suffrages,  the  next  governor  of  the 
State." 

In  the  storm  of  applause  that  burst  upon  the  dra- 
matic peroration  of  the  ex-district  attorney,  a  man 
rose  from  the  center  of  the  stage  semicircle  and  lum- 
bered heavily  forward  to  the  footlights.  Loring's  first 
emotion  was  of  surprise,  tempered  with  pity.  The 
crisis-born  leader,  heralded  by  such  a  flourish  of  rhetor- 
ical trumpets,  was  a  giant  in  size;  but  with  his  huge 
figure,  unshapely  and  ill-clad,  all  promise  of  greatness 
seemed  to  pause. 

His  face,  broad-featured,  colorless,  and  beardless  as 
a  boy's,  was  either  a  blank  or  an  impenetrable  mask. 
There  was  no  convincement  in  the  lack-luster  gaze  of 
the  small,  porcine  eyes;  no  eloquence  in  the  harsh, 
nasal  tones  of  the  untrained  voice,  or  in  the  ponderous 
and  awkward  wavings  of  the  beam-like  arms.  None 
the  less,  before  he  had  uttered  a  dozen  halting  sen- 
tences he  was  carrying  the  audience  with  him  step  by 
step;  moving  the  great  concourse  of  listeners  with  his 
commonplace  periods  as  a  mellifluous  Hawk  could  never 
hope  to  move  it. 

Loring  saw  the  miracle  in  the  throes  of  its  outwork- 
ing; saw  and  felt  it  in  his  own  proper  person,  and 
sought  in  vain  to  account  for  it.  Was  there  some  sub- 
tile magnetism  in  this  great  hulk  of  a  man  that  made 
itself  felt  in  spite  of  its  hamperings  ?  Or  was  it  merely 


22  THE   GRAFTERS 

that  the  people,  weary  of  empty  rhetoric  and  unkept 
promises,  were  ripe  to  welcome  and  to  follow  any  man 
whose  apparent  earnestness  and  sincerity  atoned  for 
all  his  lacks  ? 

Explain  it  as  he  might,  Loring  soon  assured  himself 
that  the  Honorable  Jasper  G.  Bucks  was  laying  hold  of 
the  sentiment  of  the  audience  as  though  it  were  a  thing 
tangible  to  be  grasped  by  the  huge  hands.  Unlike 
Hawk,  whose  speech  flamed  easily  into  denunciation 
when  it  touched  on  the  alien  corporations,  he  coun- 
seled moderation  and  lawful  reprisals.  Land  syndi- 
cates, railroads,  foreign  capital  in  whatever  employment, 
were  prime  necessities  in  any  new  and  growing  com- 
monwealth. The  province  of  the  people  was  not  to 
wreck  the  ship,  but  to  guide  it.  And  the  remedy  for  all 
ills  lay  in  controlling  legislation,  faithfully  and  rigidly 
enforced. 

"My  friends :  I'm  only  a  plain,  hard-handed  farmer, 
as  those  of  you  who  are  my  fellow  townsmen  can  testify. 
But  I've  seen  what  you've  seen,  and  I've  suffered  what 
you've  suffered.  Year  after  year  we  send  our  repre- 
sentatives to  the  legislature,  and  what  comes  of  it? 
Why,  these  corporations,  looking  only  to  their  own  in- 
terests, as  they're  in  duty  bound  to  do,  buys  'em  if  they 
can.  You  can't  blame  'em  for  that ;  it's  business — their 
business.  But  it  is  our  business,  as  citizens  of  this 
great  commonwealth,  to  prevent  it.  We  have  good  laws 


A   MAN    OF   THE    PEOPLE  23 

i 

on  our  statute  books,  but  we  need  more  of  'em;  laws 
for  control,  with  plain,  honest  men  at  the  capital,  in 
the  judiciary,  in  every  root  and  branch  of  the  executive, 
to  enforce  'em.  With  such  laws,  and  such  men  to  see 
that  they  are  executed,  there  wouldn't  be  any  more  ex- 
tortion, any  more  raising  of  the  rates  of  transportation 
on  the  produce  of  our  ranches  and  farms  merely  be- 
cause the  eastern  market  for  that  particular  product 
happened  to  jump  a  few  cents  on  the  dollar. 

"No,  my  friends;  plain,  hard-handed  farmer  though 
I  be,  I  can  see  what  will  follow  an  honest  election  of 
the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people.  The 
State  can  be — it  ought  to  be — sovereign  within  its  own 
boundaries.  If  we  rise  up  as  one  man  next  Tuesday 
and  put  a  ticket  into  the  ballot-box  that  says  we  are 
going  to  make  it  so,  and  keep  it  so,  you'll  see  a  new 
commodity  tariff  put  into  effect  on  the  Western  Pacific 
Eailroad  the  day  after." 

The  speaker  paused,  and  into  the  little  gap  of  silence 
barked  a  voice  from  the  gallery. 

"That's  what  you  say.  But  supposin'  they  don't  do 
it?" 

Loring  was  gazing  steadfastly  at  the  blank,  heavy 
face,  so  utterly  devoid  of  the  enthusiasm  the  man  was 
evoking  in  others.  For  one  flitting  instant  he  thought 
he  saw  behind  the  mask.  The  immobile  face,  the  awk- 
ward gestures,  the  slipshod  English  became  suddenly 


24  THE   GEAFTEES 

transparent,  revealing  the  real  man;  a  man  of  titanic 
strength,  of  tremendous  possibilities  for  good  or  evil. 
Loring  put  up  his  glasses  and  looked  again;  but  the 
figure  of  the  flash-light  inner  vision  had  vanished,  and 
the  speaker  was  answering  his  objector  as  calmly  as 
though  the  house  held  only  the  single  critic  to  be  set 
right. 

"I'm  always  glad  to  hear  a  man  speak  right  out  in 
meeting,"  he  said,  dropping  still  deeper  into  the  col- 
loquialisms. "Supposing  the  corporations  don't  see 
the  handwriting  on  the  wall — won't  see  it,  you  say? 
Then,  my  friend,  it  will  become  the  manifest  duty  of 
the  legislature  and  the  executive  fo  make  'em  see  it: 
always  lawfully,  you  understand;  always  with  a  just 
and  equitable  respect  for  the  rights  of  property  in  which 
our  free  and  glorious  institutions  are  founded,  but  with 
level-handed  justice,  and  without  fear  or  favor." 

A  thunderous  uproar  of  applause  clamored  on  the 
heels  of  the  answer,  and  the  Honorable  Jasper  mopped 
his  face  with  a  colored  handkerchief  and  took  a  swallow 
of  water  from  the  glass  on  the  desk. 

"Mind  you,  my  friends,  I'm  not  saying  we  are  not 
going  to  find  plenty  of  stumps  and  roots  and  a  tough 
sod  in  this  furrow  we  are  going  to  plow.  It's  only  the 
fool  or  the  ignoramus  who  underrates  the  strength  of  his 
opponent.  It  is  going  to  be  just  plain,  honest  justice 
and  the  will  of  the  people  against  the  money  of  the 


A   MAN   OF   THE   PEOPLE  25 

Harrimans  and  the  Goulds  and  the  Vanderbilts  and  all 
the  rest  of  'em.  But  the  law  is  mighty,  and  it  will  pre- 
vail. Give  us  an  honest  legislature  to  make  such  laws, 
and  an  executive  strong  enough  to  enforce  'em,  and 
the  sovereign  State  will  stand  out  glorious  and  triumph- 
ant as  a  monument  against  oppression. 

''When  that  time  comes — and  ifs  a-coming,  my 
friends — the  corporations  and  the  syndicates  will  read 
the  handwriting  on  the  wall;  don't  you  be  afraid  of 
that.  If  they  should  be  a  little  grain  thick-headed  and 
sort  o'  blind  at  first,  as  old  King  Belshazzar  was,  it  may 
be  that  the  sovereign  State  will  have  to  give  'em  an 
object-lesson — lawfully,  always  lawfully,  you  under- 
stand. But  when  they  see,  through  the  medium  of 
such  an  object-lesson  or  otherwise,  as  the  case  may  be, 
that  we  mean  business;  when  they  see  that  we,  the 
people  of  this  great  and  growing  commonwealth,  mean 
to  assert  our  rights  to  live  and  move  and  have  our  be- 
ing, to  have  fair,  even-handed  justice  meted  out  to 
ourselves,  our  wives  and  our  little  children,  they'll  come 
down  and  quit  watering  their  stock  with  the  sweat  of 
our  brows;  and  that  hold-up  motto  of  theirs,  'All  the 
tariff  the  traffic  will  stand,'  will  be  no  more  known  in 
Israel!" 

Again  the  clamor  of  applause  rose  like  fine  dust  on 
the  throng-heated  air,  and  Kent  looked  at  his  watch. 


26  THE    GRAFTERS 

"It  is  time  we  were  going,"  he  said;  adding:  "I 
guess  you  have  had  enough  of  it,  haven't  you  ?" 

Lorihg  was  silent  for  the  better  part  of  the  way  back 
to  the  railway  station.  When  he  spoke  it  was  in  an- 
swer to  a  delayed  question  of  Kent's. 

"What  do  I  think  of  him?  I  don't  know,  David; 
and  that's  the  plain  truth.  He  is  not  the  man  he  ap- 
pears to  be  as  he  stands  there  haranguing  that  crowd. 
That  is  a  pose,  and  an  exceedingly  skilful  one.  He  is 
not  altogether  apparent  to  me ;  but  he  strikes  me  as  be- 
ing a  man  of  immense  possibilities — whether  for  good 
or  evil,  I  can't  say." 

"You  needn't  draw  another  breath  of  uncertainty  on 
that  score,"  was  the  curt  rejoinder.  "He  is  a  dema- 
gogue, pure  and  unadulterated." 

Loring  did  not  attempt  to  refute  the  charge. 

"Are  he  and  his  party  likely  to  win?"  he  asked. 

"God  knows,"  said  Kent.  "We  have  had  so  many 
lightning  transformations  in  politics  in  the  State  that 
nothing  is  impossible." 

"I'd  like  to  know,"  was  Loring's  comment.  "It 
might  make  some  difference  to  me,  personally." 

"To  you?"  said  Kent,  inquiringly.  "That  reminds 
me:  I  haven't  given  you  a  chance  to  say  ten  words 
about  yourself." 

"The  chance  hasn't  been  lacking.  But  my  business 
out  here  is — well,  it  isn't  exactly  a  Star  Chamber  mat- 


A   MAN    OF   THE   PEOPLE  27 

ter,  but  I'm  under  promise  in  a  way  not  to  talk  about 
it  until  I  have  had  a  conference  with  our  people  at  the 
capital.  I'll  write  you  about  it  in  a  few  days." 

They  were  ascending  the  steps  at.  the  end  of  the 
passenger  platform  again,  and  Lorimg  broke  away  from 
the  political  and  personal  entanglement  to  give  Kent 
one  more  opportunity  to  hear  his  word  of  negative  com- 
fort. 

"We  dug  up  the  field  of  recollection  pretty  thoroughly 
in  our  after-dinner  seance  in  your  rooms,  David,  but  I 
noticed  there  was  one  corner  of  it  you  left  undisturbed. 
Was  there  any  good  reason?" 

Kent  made  no  show  of  misunderstanding. 

"There  was  the  excellent  reason  which  must  have 
been  apparent  to  you  before  you  had  been  an  hour  in 
Gaston.  I've  made  my  shot,  and  missed." 

Loring  entered  the  breach  with  his  shield  held  well 
to  the  fore.  He  was  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  as- 
sault a  friend's  confidence  recklessly. 

"I  thought  a  good  while  ago,  and  I  still  think,  that 
you  are  making  a  mountain  out  of  a  mole-hill,  David. 
Elinor  Brentwood  is  a  true  woman  in  every  inch  of 
her.  She  is  as  much  above  caring  for  false  notions  of 
caste  as  you  ought  to  be." 

"I  know  her  nobility:  which  is  all  the  more  reason 
why  I  shouldn't  take  advantage  of  it.  We  may  scoff  at 
the  social  inequalities  as  much  as  we  please,  but  we  can't 


28  THE   GRAFTERS 

laugh  them  out  of  court.  As  between  a  young  woman 
who  is  an  heiress  in  her  own  right,  and  a  briefless  law- 
yer, there  are  differences  which  a  decent  man  is  bound 
to  efface.  And  I  haven't  been  able." 

"Does  Miss  Brentwood  know?" 

"She  knows  nothing  at  all.  I  was  unwilling  to  en- 
tangle her,  even  with  a  confidence." 

"The  more  fool  you,"  said  Loring,  bluntly.  "You 
call  yourself  a  lawyer,  and  you  have  not  yet  learned  one 
of  the  first  principles  of  common  justice,  which  is  that  a 
woman  has  some  rights  which  even  a  besotted  lover  is 
bound  to  respect.  You  made  love  to  her  that  summer 
at  Croydon;  you  needn't  deny  it.  And  at  the  end  of 
things  you  walk  off  to  make  your  fortune  without  com- 
mitting yourself;  without  knowing,  or  apparently  car- 
ing, what  your  stiff-necked  poverty-pride  may  cost  her 
in  years  of  uncertainty.  You  deserve  to  lose  her." 

Kent's  smile  was  a  fair  measure  of  his  unhopeful 
mood. 

"You  can't  well  lose  what  you  have  never  had.  I'm 
not  such  an  ass  as  to  believe  that  she  cared  greatly." 

"How  do  you  know  ?  Not  by  anything  you  ever  gave 
her  a  chance  to  say,  I'll  dare  swear.  I've  a  bit  of  qual- 
ified good  news  for  you,  but  the  spirit  is  moving  me 
mightily  to  hold  my  tongue." 

"Tell  me,"  said  Kent,  his  indifference  vanishing  in 
the  turning  of  a  leaf. 


A   MAN   OF   THE    PEOPLE  29 

"Well,  to  begin  with,  Miss  Brentwood  is  still  unmar- 
ried, though  the  gossips  say  she  doesn't  lack  plenty  of 
eligible  offers/' 

"Half  of  that  I  knew;  the  other  half  I  took  for 
granted.  Go  on." 

"Her  mother,  under  the  advice  of  the  chief  of  the 
clan  Brentwood,  has  been  making  a  lot  of  bad  invest- 
ments for  herself  and  her  two  daughters:  in  other 
words,  she  has  been  making  ducks  and  drakes  of  the 
Brentwood  fortune."  ^ 

Kent  was  as  deeply  moved  as  if  the  loss  had  been  his 
own,  and  said  as  much,  craving  more  of  the  particulars. 

"I  can't  give  them.  But  I  may  say  that  the  blame 
lies  at  your  door,  David." 

"At  my  door  ?    How  do  you  arrive  at  that  ?" 

"By  the  shortest  possible  route.  If  you  had  done 
your  duty  by  Elinor  in  the  Croydon  summer,  Mrs. 
Brentwood  would  have  had  a  bright  young  attorney  for 
a  son-in-law  and  adviser,  and  the  bad  investments 
would  not  have  been  made." 

Kent's  laugh  was  entirely  devoid  of  mirth. 

"Don't  trample  on  a  man  when  he's  down.  I  was 
neither  a  prophet  nor  the  son  of  a  prophet.  But  how 
bad  is  the  smash  ?  Surely  you  know  that  ?" 

"No,  I  don't.  Bradford  was  telling  me  about  it  the 
day  I  left  Boston.  He  gave  me  to  understand  that  the 


30  THE    GRAFTERS 

principal  family  holding  at  present  is  in  the  stock  of  a 
certain  western  railway." 

"Did  he  happen  to  know  the  name  of  the  stock?" 
asked  Kent,  moistening  his  lips. 

"He  did.  Fate  flirts  with  you  two  in  the  usual 
fashion.  Mrs.  Brentwood's  little  fortune — and  by  con- 
sequence, Elinor's  and  Penelope's — is  tied  up  in  the 
stock  of  the  company  whose  platform  we  are  occupy- 
ing at  the  present  moment — the  Western  Pacific." 

Kent  let  slip/  a  hard  word  directed  at  ill-advisers  in 
general,  and  Loring  took  his  cue  from  the  malediction. 

"You  swear  pretty  feelingly,  David.  Isn't  our  prop- 
erty as  good  a  thing  as  we  of  the  Boston  end  have  been 
cracking  it  up  to  be  ?" 

"You  know  better  about  the  financial  part  of  it  than 
I  do.  But — well,  you  are  fresh  from  this  anarchistic 
conclave  at  the  Opera  House.  You  can  imagine  what 
the  stock  of  the  Western  Pacific,  or  of  any  other  foreign 
corporation  doing  business  in  this  State,  will  be  worth 
in  six  months  after  Bucks  and  his  crowd  get  into  the 
saddle." 

"You  speak  as  if  the  result  of  the  election  were  a 
foregone  conclusion.  I  hope  it  isn't.  But  we  were 
talking  more  particularly  of  Miss  Brentwood,  and  your 
personal  responsibilities."  The  belated  train  was  whis- 
tling for  the  lower  yard,  and  Loring  was  determined  to 
say  all  that  was  in  his  mind. 


A   MAN   OF   THE   PEOPLE  31 

"Yes;  go  on.  I'm  anxious  to  hear — more  anxious 
than  I  seem  to  be,  perhaps." 

"Well,  she  is  coming  West,  after  a  bit.  She,  and  her 
sister  and  the  mother.  Mrs.  Brentwood's  asthma  is 
worse,  and  the  wise  men  have  ordered  her  to  the  in- 
terior. I  thought  you'd  like  to  know." 

"Is  she — are  they  coming  this  way  ?"  asked  Kent. 

The  train  was  in,  and  the  porter  had  fetched  Loring's 
hand-bag  from  the  check-stand.  The  guest  paused  with 
one  foot  on  the  step  of  the  sleeping-car. 

"If  I  were  you,  David,  I'd  write  and  ask;  I  should, 
by  Jove.  It  would  be  a  tremendously  cheeky  thing  to 
do,  of  course,  having  such  a  slight  acquaintance  with 
her  as  you  have;  but  I'll  be  hanged  if  I  shouldn't  chance 
it.  And  in  the  mean  time,  if  I  don't  go  back  East 
next  week,  you'll  hear  from  me.  When  you  do,  or  if 
you  do,  take  a  day  off  and  run  up  to  the  capital.  I 
shall  need  you.  Good-by." 

Kent  watched  the  train  pull  out ;  stood  looking  after 
it  until  the  two  red  eyes  of  the  rear  signals  had  disap- 
peared in  the  dusty  darkness  of  the  illimitable  plain. 
Then  he  went  to  his  rooms,  to  the  one  which  was  called 
by  courtesy  his  office,  and  without  allowing  himself 
time  for  a  nice  balancing  of  the  pros  and  cons,  squared 
himself  at  the  desk  to  write  a  letter. 


Ill 

THE  BOSTONIANS 

It  was  precisely  on  the  day  set  for  the  Brentwoods' 
westward  flitting  that  the  postman,  making  his  morn- 
ing round,  delivered  David  Kent's  asking  at  the 
house  in  the  Back  Bay  sub-district.  Elinor  was  busy 
packing  for  the  migration,  but  she  left  Penelope  and 
the  maid  to  cope  with  the  problem  of  compressing  two 
trunkfuls  into  one  while  she  read  the  letter,  and  she 
was  reading  it  a  second  time  when  Mr.  Brookes  Orms- 
by's  card  came  up. 

"You  go,  Penelope,"  she  begged.  "There  is  so  much 
to  do." 

"Not  I,"  said  the  younger  sister,  cavalierly;  "he 
didn't  come  to  see  me."  Whereupon  Elinor  smoothed 
the  two  small  wrinkles  of  impatience  out  of  her  brow, 
tucked  her  letter  into  her  bosom,  and  went  down  to  meet 
the  early  morning  caller. 

Mr.  Brookes  Ormsby,  club-man,  gentleman  of  ath- 
letic leisure,  and  inheritor  of  the  Ormsby  millions,  was 

(32) 


THE   BOSTONIANS  33 

pacing  back  and  forth  before  the  handful  of  fire  in 
the  drawing-room  grate  when  she  entered. 

"You  don't  deserve  to  have  a  collie  sheep-dog  friend," 
he  protested  reproachfully.  "How  was  I  to  know  that 
you  were  going  away?" 

Another  time  Elinor  might  have  felt  that  she  owed 
him  an  explanation,  but  just  now  she  was  careful,  and 
troubled  about  the  packing. 

"How  was  I  to  know  you  didn't  know  ?"  she  retorted. 
"It  was  in  the  Transcript" 

"Well!"  said  Ormsby.  "Things  have  come  to  a 
pretty  pass  when  I  have  to  keep  track  of  you  through 
the  society  column.  I  didn't  see  the  paper.  Dyckman 
brought  me  word  last  night  at  Vineyard  Haven,  and 
we  broke  a  propeller  blade  on  the  Amphitrite  trying  to 
get  here  in  time." 

"I  am  so  sorry — for  the  Amphitrite"  she  said.  "But 
you  are  here,  and  in  good  season.  Shall  I  call  mother 
and  Nell?" 

"No.  I  ran  out  to  see  if  I'm  in  time  to  do  your  er- 
rands for  you — take  your  tickets,  and  so  on." 

"Oh,  we  shouldn't  think  of  troubling  you.  James 
can  do  all  those  things.  And  failing  James,  there  is 
a  very  dependable  young  woman  at  the  head  of  this 
household.  Haven't  I  'personally  conducted'  the  fam- 
ily all  over  Europe?" 

"James  is  a  base  hireling,"  said  the  caller,  blandly. 


34  THE    GKAFTEKS 

"And  as  for  the  capable  young  woman:  do  I  or  do  I 
not  recollect  a  dark  night  on  the  German  frontier  when 
she  was  glad  enough  to  call  on  a  sleepy  fellow  pilgrim 
to  help  her  wrestle  with  a  particularly  thick-headed 
customs  officer?" 

"If  you  do,  it  is  not  especially  kind  of  you  to  remind 
her  of  it." 

He  looked  up  quickly,  and  the  masterful  soul  of  the 
man,  for  which  the  clean-cut,  square-set  jaw  and  the 
athletic  figure  were  the  outward  presentments,  put  on  a 
mask  of  deference  and  humility. 

"You  are  hard  with  me,  Elinor — always  flinty  and 
adamantine,  and  that  sort.  Have  you  no  soft  side  at 
all?" 

She  laughed. 

"The  sentimental  young  woman  went  out  some  time 
ago,  didn't  she  ?  One  can't  be  an  anachronism." 

"I  suppose  not.  Yet  I'm  always  trying  to  make  my- 
self believe  other  things  about  you.  Don't  you  like  to 
be  cared  for  like  other  women?" 

"I  don't  know;  sometimes  I  think  I  should.  But  I 
have  had  to  be  the  man  of  the  house  since  father  died." 

"I  know,"  he  said.  "And  it  is  the  petty  anxieties 
that  have  made  you  put  the  woman  to  the  wall.  I'm 
here  this  morning  to  save  you  some  of  them ;  to  take  the 
man's  part  in  your  outsetting,  or  as  much  of  it  as  I  can. 


THE   BOSTONTAISrS  35 

When  are  you  going  to  give  me  the  right  to  come  be- 
tween you  and  all  the  little  worries,  Elinor  ?" 

She  turned  from  him  with  a  faint  gesture  of  cold 
impatience. 

"You.  are  forgetting  your  promise/'  she  said  quite 
dispassionately.  "We  were  to  be  friends;  as  good 
friends  as  we  were  before  that  evening  at  Bar  Harbor. 
I  told  you  it  would  be  impossible,  and  you  said  you 
were  strong  enough  to  make  it  possible." 

He  looked  at  her  with  narrowing  eyes. 

"It  is  possible,  in  a  way.  But  I'd  like  to  know 
what  door  of  your  heart  it  is  that  I  haven't  been  able 
to  open." 

She  ignored  the  pleading  and  took  refuge  in  a 
woman's  expedient. 

"If  you  insist  on  going  back  to  the  beginnings,  I  shall 
go  back,  also — to  Abigail  and  the  trunk-packing." 

He  planted  himself  squarely  before  her,  the  mask 
lifted  and  the  masterful  soul  asserting  itself  boldly. 

"It  wouldn't  do  any  good,  you  know.  I  am  going 
with  you." 

"To  Abigail  and  the  trunk-room  ?" 

"Oh,  no;  to  the  jumping-off  place  out  West — wher- 
ever it  is  you  are  going  to  hibernate." 

"No,"  she  said  decisively;  "you  must  not." 

"Why?" 


36  THE    GRAFTERS 

"My  saying  so  ought  to  be  sufficient  reason." 

"It  isn't/'  he  contended,  frowning  down  on  her 
good-naturedly.  "Shall  I  tell  you  why  you  don't  want 
me  to  go?  It  is  because  you  are  afraid." 

"I  am  not,"  she  denied. 

"Yes,  you  are.  You  know  in  your  own  heart  there 
is  no  reason  why  you  should  continue  to  make  me  un- 
happy, and  you  are  afraid  I  might  over-persuade  you." 

Her  eyes — they  were  the  serene  eyes  of  cool  gray 
that  take  on  slate-blue  tints  in  stressful  moments — 
met  his  defiantly. 

"If  you  think  that,  I  withdraw  my  objection,"  she 
said  coldly.  "Mother  and  Penelope  will  be  delighted, 
I  am  sure." 

"And  you  will  be  bored,  world  without  end,"  he 
laughed.  "Never  mind;  I'll  be  decent  about  it  and 
keep  out  of  your  way  as  much  as  you  like." 

Again  she  made  the  little  gesture  of  petulant  im- 
patience. 

<cYo\i  are  continually  placing  me  in  a  false  position. 
Can't  you  leave  me  out  of  it  entirely?" 

It  is  one  of  the  prime  requisites  of  successful  mas- 
tership to  know  when  to  press  the  point  home,  and 
when  to  recede  gracefully.  Ormsby  abruptly  shut  the 
door  upon  sentiment  and  came  down  to  things  prac- 
tical. 

"It   is   your   every-day    comfort   that   concerns   me 


THE   BOSTONIANS  37 

chiefly.  I  am  going  to  take  all  three  of  you  in  charge, 
giving  the  dependable  young  person  a  well-earned  holi- 
day— a  little  journey  in  which  she  won't  have  to  chaf- 
fer with  the  transit  people.  Have  you  chosen  your 
route  to  the  western  somewhere?" 

Miss  Brentwood  had  the  fair,  transparent  skin  that 
tells  tales,  and  the  blue-gray  eyes  were  apt  to  confirm 
them.  David  Kent's  letter  was  hidden  in  the  folds  of 
her  loose-waisted  morning  gown,  and  she  fancied  it 
stirred  like  a  thing  alive  to  remind  her  of  its  message. 
Ormsby  was  looking  past  her  to  the  old-fashioned  or- 
molu clock  on  the  high  mantel,  comparing  the  time 
with  his  watch,  but  he  was  not  oblivious  of  the  tell- 
tale flush. 

"There  is  nothing  embarrassing  about  the  choosing 
of  a  route,  is  there  ?"  he  queried. 

"Oh,  no;  being  true  Americans,  we  don't  know  one 
route  from  another  in  our  own  country,"  she  con- 
fessed. "Bui  at  the  western  end  of  it  we  want  to  go 
over  the  Western  Pacific." 

Ormsby  knew  the  West  by  rail  routes  as  one  who 
travels  much  for  time-killing  purposes. 

"It's  a  rather  roundabout  cow-path,"  he  objected. 
"The  Overland  Short  Line  is  a  good  bit  more  direct; 
not  to  mention  the  service,  which  is  a  lot  better." 

But  Elinor  had  made  her  small  concession  to  David 
Kent's  letter,  and  she  would  not  withdraw  it. 


38  THE    GEAFTEES 

"Probably  you  don't  own  any  Western  Pacific 
stock/'  she  suggested.  "We  do;  and  we  mean  to  be 
loyal  to  our  salt." 

Ormsby  laughed. 

"I  see  Western  Pacific  has  gone  down  a  few  points 
since  the  election  of  Governor  Bucks.  If  I  had  any,  I'd 
wire  my  broker  to  sell." 

"We  are  not  so  easily  frightened,"  she  asserted ;  add- 
ing, with  a  touch  of  the  austerity  which  was  her  Puri- 
tan birthright:  "Nor  quite  so  conscienceless  as  you 
men." 

"Conscience,"  he  repeated  half  absently;  "is  there 
any  room  for  such  an  out-of-date  thing  in  a  nation 
of  successf ulists ?  But  seriously;  you  ought  to  get 
rid  of  Western  Pacific.  There  can  be  no  possible  ques- 
tion of  conscience  involved." 

"I  don't  agree  with  you,"  she  retorted  with  prompt 
decision.  "If  we  were  to  sell  now  it  would  be  because 
we  were  afraid  it  might  prove  to  be  a  bad  investment. 
Therefore,  for  the  sake  of  a  presumably  ignorant  buyer, 
we  have  no  right  to  sell." 

He  smiled  leniently. 

"All  of  which  goes  to  prove  that  you  three  lone 
women  need  a  guardian.  But  I  mustn't  keep  you  any 
longer  from  Abigail  and  the  trunks.  What  time  shall 
I  send  the  expediters  after  your  luggage?" 


THE   BOSTONIANS  39 

She  told  him,  and  went  with  him  to  the  door. 

"Please  don't  think  me  ungrateful,"  she  said,  when 
she  had  thrown  the  night-latch  for  him.  "I  don't  mean 
to  be." 

"I  don't  think  anything  of  you  that  I  ought  not  to 
think :  in  that  I  am  as  conscientious  as  even  you  could 
wish.  Good-by,  until  this  evening.  I'll  meet  you  all 
at  the  station." 

As  had  come  to  be  the  regular  order  of  things,  Elinor 
found  herself  under  fire  when  she  went  above  stairs 
to  rejoin  her  mother  and  sister. 

Mrs.  Brentwood  was  not  indifferent  to  the  Ormsby 
millions;  neither  had  she  forgotten  a  certain  senti- 
mental summer  at  the  foot  of  Old  Croydon.  She  was 
a  thin-lipped  little  person,  plain-spoken  to  the  verge 
of  unfriendliness;  a  woman  in  whom  the  rugged,  self- 
reliant,  Puritan  strain  had  become  panic-acidulous. 
And  when  the  Puritan  stock  degenerates  in  that  di- 
rection, it  is  apt  to  lack  good  judgment  on  the  busi- 
ness side,  and  also  the  passivity  which  smooths  the 
way  for  incompetence  in  less  assertive  folk. 

Kent  had  stood  something  in  awe,  not  especially  of 
her  personality,  but  of  her  tongue ;  and  had  been  forced 
to  acquiesce  silently  in  Loring's  summing-up  of  Eli- 
nor's mother  as  a  woman  who  had  taken  culture  and 
the  humanizing  amenities  of  the  broader  life  much 


40  THE    GRAFTERS 

as  the  granite  of  her  native  hills  takes  polish — reluc- 
tantly, and  without  prejudice  to  its  inner  granular 
structure. 

"Elinor,  you  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  keep  Brookes 
Ormsby  dangling  the  way  you  do,"  was  her  comment 
when  Elinor  came  back.  "You  are  your  father's 
daughters,  both  of  you:  there  isn't  a  drop  of  the 
Grimkie  blood  in  either  of  you,  I  do  believe." 

Elinor  was  sufficiently  her  father's  daughter  to  hold 
her  peace  under  her  mother's  reproaches:  also,  there 
was  enough  of  the  Grimkie  blood  in  her  veins  to  stiffen 
her  in  opposition  when  the  need  arose.  S'o  she  said 
nothing. 

"Since  your  Uncle  Ichabod  made  such  a  desperate 
mess  of  that  copper  business  in  Montana,  we  have  all 
been  next  door  to  poverty,  and  you  know  it,"  the  mother 
went  on,  irritated  by  Elinor's  silence.  "I  don't  care  so 
much  for  myself :  your  father  and  I  began  with  nothing, 
and  I  can  go  back  to  nothing,  if  necessary.  But  you 
can't,  and  neither  can  Penelope;  you'd  both  starve. 
I  should  like  to  know  what  Brookes  Ormsby  has  done 
that  you  can't  tolerate  him." 

"It  isn't  anything  he  has  done,  or  failed  to  do,"  said 
Elinor,  wearily.  "Please  let's  not  go  over  it  all  again, 
mother." 

Mrs.  Brentwood  let  that  gun  cool  while  she  fired 
another. 


THE   BOSTONIANS  41 

"I  suppose  he  came  to  say  good-by:  what  is  he  go- 
ing to  do  with  himself  this  winter?" 

The  temptation  to  equivocate  for  pure  perversity's 
sake  was  strong  upon  Elinor,  and  she  yielded  to  it. 

"How  should  I  know?  He  has  the  Amphitrite  and 
the  Florida  coast,  hasn't  he?" 

Mrs.  Brentwood  groaned. 

"To  think  of  the  way  he  squanders  his  money  in  sheer 
dissipation!"  she  exclaimed.  "Of  course,  he  will  take 
an  entire  hfiuse-party  with  him,  as  usual,  and  the  cost 
of  that  one  cruise  would  set  you  up  in  housekeeping." 

Penelope  laughed  with  a  younger  daughter's  license. 
She  was  a  statuesque  young  woman  with  a  pose,  ripe 
lips,  flashing  white  teeth,  laughing  eyes  with  an  imp 
of  mischief  in  them,  and  an  exquisitely  turned-up 
nose  that  was  neither  the  Brentwood,  which  was  se- 
verely classic,  nor  the  Grimkie,  which  was  pure  Puri- 
tan renaissance. 

"Which  is  to  intimate  that  he  won't  have  money 
enough  left  to  do  it  when  he  comes  back,"  she  com- 
mented. "I  wish  there  were  some  way  of  making 
him  believe  he  had  to  give  me  what  remains  of  his 
income  after  he  has  spent  all  he  can  on  the  Florida 
cruise.  I'd  wear  Worth  gowns  and  be  lapped  in  luxury 
for  the  next  ten  years  at  the  very  least." 

"He  isn't  going  to  Florida  this  winter,"  said  Eli- 


42  THE   GRAFTERS 

nor,  repenting  her  of  the  small  quibble.  "He  is  going 
West." 

Mrs.  Brentwood  looked  up  sharply. 

"With  us?"  she  queried. 

"Yes." 

Penelope  clasped  her  hands  and  tried  to  look  soul- 
ful. 

"Oh,  Ellie!"  she  said;  "have  you—" 

"No,"  Elinor  retorted;  "I  have  not." 


IV 

THE   FLESH-POTS   OF   EGYPT 

The  westward  journey  began  at  the  appointed  hour 
in  the  evening  with  the  resourceful  Ormsby  in  com- 
mand; and  when  the  outsetting,  in  which  she  had  to 
sustain  only  the  part  of  an  obedient  automaton,  was  a 
fact  accomplished,  Elinor  settled  back  into  the  pillowed 
corner  of  her  sleeping-car  section  to  enjoy  the  un- 
wonted sensation  of  being  the  one  cared  for  instead  of 
the  caretaker. 

She  had  traveled  more  or  less  with  her  mother  and 
Penelope  ever  since  her  father's  death,  and  was  well 
used  to  taking  the  helm.  Experience  and  the  re- 
sponsibilities had  made  her  self-reliant,  and  her  jest- 
ing boast  that  she  was  a  dependable  young  woman  was 
the  simple  truth.  Yet  to  the  most  modern  of  girl  bache- 
lors there  may  come  moments  when  the  soul  harks 
back  to  the  eternal-womanly,  and  the  desire  to  be  pet- 
ted and  looked  after  and  safe-conducted  is  stronger  than 
the  bachelor  conventions. 

(43) 


44  THE    GKAFTERS 

Two  sections  away  the  inevitable  newly  married  pair 
posed  unconsciously  to  point  the  moral  for  Miss  Brent- 
wood.  She  marked  the  eagerly  anticipative  solicitude 
of  the  boyish  groom,  contrasting  it  now  and  then  with 
Ormsby's  less  obtrusive  attentions.  It  was  all  very 
absurd  and  sentimental,  she  thought;  and  yet  she  was 
not  without  a  curious  heart-stirring  of  envy  provoked 
by  the  self-satisfied  complacency  of  the  bride. 

What  had  that  chit  of  a  girl  done  to  earn  her  im- 
munity from  self-def endings  and  the  petty  anxieties? 
Nothing,  Elinor  decided;  at  least,  nothing  more  pur- 
poseful than  the  swimmer  does  when  he  lets  himself 
drift  with  the  current.  None  the  less,  the  immunity 
was  hers,  undeniably,  palpably.  For  the  first  time  in 
her  life  Miss  Brentwood  found  herself  looking,  with 
a  little  shudder  of  withdrawal  and  dismay,  down  the 
possible  vista — possible  to  every  unmarried  woman  of 
twenty-four — milestoned  by  unbroken  years  of  spin- 
sterhood  and  self-helpings. 

Was  she  strong  enough  to  walk  this  hedged-up  path 
alone? — single-hearted  enough  to  go  on  holding  out 
against  her  mother's  urgings,  against  Ormsby's  mas- 
terful wooing,  against  her  own  unconquerable  longing 
for  a  sure  anchorage  in  some  safe  haven  of  manful 
care  and  supervision;  all  this  that  she  might  continue 
to  preserve  her  independence  and  live  the  life  which, 
despite  its  drawbacks,  was  yet  her  own? 


THE    FLESH-POTS    OF   EGYPT  45 

There  were  times  when  she  doubted  her  resolution; 
and  this  first  night  of  the  westward  journey  was  one  of 
them.  She  had  thought  at  one  time  that  she  might  be 
able  to  Idealize  David  Kent,  but  he  had  gone  his  way 
to  hew  out  his  fortune,  taking  her  upstirrings  of  his 
ambition  in  a  purely  literal  and  selfish  sense,  so  far  as 
she  could  determine.  And  now  there  was  Brookes 
Ormsby.  She  could  by  no  possibility  idealize  him. 
He  was  a  fixed  fact,  stubbornly  asserted.  Yet  he  was 
a  great-hearted  gentleman,  unspoiled  by  his  millions, 
thoughtful  always  for  her  comfort,  generous,  self-effac- 
ing. Just  now,  for  example,  when  he  had  done  all, 
he  had  seemed  to  divine  her  wish  to  be  alone  and  had 
betaken  himself  to  the  smoking-compartment. 

"I  promised  not  to  bore  you/'  he  had  said,  "and  I 
shaVt.  Send  the  porter  after  me  if  there  is  anything 
I  have  forgotten  to  do." 

She  took  up  the  magazine  he  had  left  on  the  seat 
beside  her  and  sought  to  put  away  the  disquieting 
thoughts.  But  they  refused  to  be  dismissed;  and  now 
among  them  rose  up  another,  dating  back  to  that  ideal- 
izing summer  at  the  foot  of  Old  Croydon,  and  having 
its  genesis  in  a  hard  saying  of  her  mother's. 

She  closed  her  eyes,  recalling  the  words  and  the 
occasion  of  them.  "You  are  merely  wasting  time  and 
sentiment  on  this  young  upstart  of  a  country  lawyer, 
Elinor.  So  long  as  you  were  content  to  make  it  a  sum- 


46  THE    GRAFTERS 

mer  day's  amusement,  I  had  nothing  to  say;  you  are 
old  enough  and  sensible  enough  to  choose  your  own 
recreations.  But  in  justice  to  yourself,  no  less  than 
to  him,  you  must  let  it  end  with  our  going  home.  You 
haven't  money  enough  for  two/' 

Her  eyes  grew  hot  under  the  closed  lids  when  she 
remembered.  At  the  time  the  hard  saying  was  evoked 
there  was  money  enough  for  two,  if  David  Kent  would 
have  shared  it.  But  he  had  held  his  peace  and  gone 
away,  and  now  there  was  not  enough  for  two. 

Elinor  faced  her  major  weakness  unflinchingly.  She 
was  not  a  slave  to  the  luxuries — the  luxuries  of  the  very 
rich.  On  the  contrary,  she  had  tried  to  make  herself  be- 
lieve that  hardness  was  a  part  of  her  creed.  But  lat- 
terly, she  had  been  made  to  see  that  there  was  a  for- 
midable array  of  things  which  she  had  been  calling 
comforts:  little  luxuries  which  Brookes  Ormsby's  wife 
might  reckon  among  the  simplest  necessities  of  the 
daily  life,  but  which  David  Kent's  wife  might  have 
to  forego;  nay,  things  which  Elinor  Brentwood  might 
presently  have  to  forego.  For  she  compelled  herself 
to  front  the  fact  of  the  diminished  patrimony  squarely. 
So  long  as  the  modest  Western  Pacific  dividends  were 
forthcoming,  they  could  live  comfortably  and  without 
pinching.  But  failing  these — 

"No,  I'm  not  great  enough,"  she  confessed,  with  a  lit- 
tle shiver.  "I  should  be  utterly  miserable.  If  I  could 


THE    FLESH-POTS    OF   EGYPT  47 

afford  to  indulge  in  ideals  it  would  be  different;  but  I 
can't — not  when  one  word  of  mine  will  build  a  barrier 
so  high  that  all  the  soul-killing  little  skimpings  can 
never  climb  over  it.  And  besides,  I  owe  something  to 
mother  and  Nell." 

It  was  the  final  straw.  When  any  weakness  of  the 
human  heart  can  find  a  seeming  virtue  to  go  hand  in 
hand  with  it,  the  battle  is  as  good  as  lost;  and  at  that 
moment  Brookes  Ormsby,  placidly  refilling  his  short 
pipe  in  the  smoking-room  of  the  Pullman,  was  by  no 
means  in  the  hopeless  case  he  was  sometimes  tempted 
to  fancy  himself. 

As  may  be  surmised,  a  diligent  suitor,  old  enough 
to  plan  thoughtfully,  and  yet  young  enough  to  simu- 
late the  youthful  ardor  of  a  lover  whose  hair  has  not 
begun  to  thin  at  the  temples,  would  lose  no  ground 
in  a  three  days'  journey  and  the  opportunities  it  af- 
forded. 

In  Penelope's  phrase,  Elinor  "suffered  him",  enjoy- 
ing her  freedom  from  care  like  a  sleepy  kitten;  shut- 
ting the  door  on  the  past  and  keeping  it  shut  until 
the  night  when  their  through  sleeper  was  coupled  to 
the  Western  Pacific  Flyer  at  A.  &  T.  Junction.  But 
late  that  evening,  when  she  was  rummaging  in  her  hand- 
bag for  a  handkerchief,  she  came  upon  David  Kenfs 
letter  and  read  it  again. 

"Loring  tells  me  you  are  coming  West,"  he  wrote. 


48  THE   GRAFTERS 

"I  assume  there  is  at  least  one  chance  in  three  that 
you  will  pass  through  Gaston.  If  you  do,  and  if  the 
hour  is  not  altogether  impossible,  I  should  like  to 
meet  your  train.  One  thing  among  the  many  the  past 
two  years  have  denied  me — the  only  thing  I  have  cared 
much  about,  I  think — is  the  sight  of  your  face.  I 
shall  be  very  happy  if  you  will  let  me  look  at  you — 
just  for  the  minute  or  two  the  train  may  stop." 

There  was  more  of  it;  a  good  bit  more:  but  it  was 
all  guarded  commonplace,  opening  no  window  in  the 
heart  of  the  man  David  Kent.  Yet  even  in  the  com- 
monplace she  found  some  faint  interlinings  of  the 
change  in  him;  not  a  mere  metamorphosis  of  the  out- 
ward man,  as  a  new  environment  might  make,  but  a 
radical  change,  deep  and  biting,  like  the  action  of  a 
strong  acid  upon  a  fine-grained  metal. 

She  returned  the  letter  to  its  envelope,  and  after 
looking  up  Gaston  on  the  time-table  fell  into  a  heart- 
stirring  reverie,  with  unseeing  eyes  fixed  on  the  rest- 
ful blackness  of  the  night  rushing  rearward  past  the 
car  windows. 

"He  has  forgotten/'  she  said,  with  a  little  lip-curl 
of  disappointment.  "He  thinks  he  ought  to  remem- 
ber, and  he  is  trying — trying  because  Grantham  said 
something  that  made  him  think  he  ought  to  try.  But 
it's  no  use.  It  was  only  a  little  summer  idyl,  and  we 
have  both  outlived  it." 


THE   FLESH-POTS   OF   EGYPT  49 

She  was  still  gazing  steadfastly  upon  the  wall  of 
outer  darkness  when  the  porter  began  to  make  down  the 
berths  and  Penelope  came  over  to  sit  in  the  opposite 
seat.  A  moment  later  the  younger  sister  made  a  dis- 
covery, or  thought  she  did. 

"Why,  Elinor  Brentwood!"  she  said.  "I  do  believe 
you  are  crying!" 

Elinor's  smile  was  serenity  undisturbed. 

"What  a  vivid  imagination  you  have,  Nell,  dear," 
she  scoffed.  Then  she  changed  the  subject  arbitrarily: 
"Is  mother  quite  comfortable?  Did  you  have  the  por- 
ter put  a  screen  in  her  window? — you  know  she  al- 
ways insists  she  can't  breathe  without  it." 

Penelope  evaded  the  queries  and  took  her  turn  at 
subject-wrenching — an  art  in  which  she  excelled. 

"We  are  on  our  own  railroad  now,  aren't  we?"  she 
asked,  with  purposeful  lack-interest.  "And — let  me 
see — isn't  Mr.  Kent  at  some  little  town  we  pass 
through?" 

"It  is  a  city,"  said  Elinor.  "And  the  name  is  Gas- 
ton." 

"I  remember  now,"  Penelope  rejoined.  "I  wonder 
if  we  shall  see  him?" 

"It  is  most  unlikely.  He  does  not  know  we  are 
coming,  and  he  wouldn't  be  looking  for  us." 

Penelope's   fine   eyes   clouded.     At   times    Elinor's 


50  THE   GEAFTEKS 

thought-processes  were  as  plain  as  print  to  the  younger 
sister;  at  other  times  they  were  not. 

"I  should  think  the  least  we  could  do  would  be  to 
let  him  know,"  she  ventured.  "Does  anybody  know 
what  time  the  train  passes  Gaston?" 

"At  seven-fifteen  to-morrow  evening,"  was  the  un- 
guarded reply;  and  Penelope  drew  her  own  conclu- 
sions from  the  ready  answer  and  the  folded  time-table 
in  Elinor's  lap. 

"Well,  why  don't  you  send  him  a  wire?  I'm  sure 
I  should." 

"Why  should  I?"  said  Elinor,  warily. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know : .  any  other  young  woman  of  his 
acquaintance  would,  I  fancy.  I  have  half  a  mind  to 
do  it  myself.  /  like  him,  if  you  don't  care  for  him 
any  more." 

Thus  Penelope;  and  a  little  while  afterward,  find- 
ing herself  in  the  library  compartment  with  blanks 
and  pen  and  ink  convenient  and  nothing  better  to  do, 
she  impulsively  made  the  threat  good  in  a  ten-word 
message  to  Kent. 

"If  he  should  happen  to  drop  in  unexpectedly  it  will 
give  Ellie  the  shock  of  her  life,"  she  mused;  and  the 
telegram  was  smuggled  into  the  hands  of  the  porter 
to  be  sent  as  occasion  offered. 

Those  who  knew  Mr.  Brookes  Ormsby  best  were  wont 


THE   FLESH-POTS   OP   EGYPT  51 

to  say  that  the  world  of  action,  a  world  lusting  avidly 
for  resourceful  men,  had  lost  the  chance  of  acquir- 
ing a  promising  leader  when  he  was  born  heir  to 
the  Ormsby  millions.  Be  that  as  it  may,  he  made  the 
most  of  such  opportunities  for  the  exercising  of  his 
gift  as  came  to  one  for  whom  the  long  purse  leveled 
most  barriers ;  had  been  making  the  most  of  the  present 
leaguer  of  a  woman's  heart — a  citadel  whose  capitula- 
tion was  not  to  be  compassed  by  mere  money-might, 
he  would  have  said. 

Up  to  the  final  day  of  the  long  westward  flight  all 
things  had  gone  well  with  him.  True,  Elinor  had 
not  thawed  visibly,  but  she  had  been  tolerant;  Pene- 
lope had  amused  herself  at  no  one's  expense  save  her 
own — a  boon  for  which  Ormsby  did  not  fail  to  be  duly 
thankful;  and  Mrs.  Brentwood  had  contributed  her 
mite  by  keeping  hands  off. 

But  at  the  dining-car  luncheon  on  the  last  day's  run, 
Penelope,  languishing  at  a  table  for  two  with  an  un- 
responsive Ormsby  for  a  vis-a-vis,  made  sly  mention 
of  the  possible  recrudescence  of  one  David  Kent  at 
a  place  called  Gaston:  this  merely  to  note  the  effect 
upon  an  unresponsive  table-mate. 

In  Penelope's  observings  there  was  no  effect  per- 
ceptible. Ormsby  said  "Ah?"  and  asked  if  she  would 
have  more  of  the  salad.  But  later,  in  a  contemplative 


52  THE   GRAFTERS 

half-hour  with  his  pipe  in  the  smoking-compartment, 
he  let  the  scrap  of  information  sink  in  and  take  root. 

Hitherto  Kent  had  been  little  more  than  a  name  to 
him;  a  name  he  had  never  heard  on  Elinor's  lips. 
But  if  love  be  blind  in  the  teens  and  twenties,  it  is 
more  than  apt  to  have  a  keen  gift  of  insight  in  the 
thirties  and  beyond.  Hence,  by  the  time  Ormsby 
had  come  to  the  second  filling  of  his  pipe,  he  had 
pieced  together  bits  of  half-forgotten  gossip  about  the 
Croydon  summer,  curious  little  reticences  on  Elinor's 
part,  vague  hints  let  fall  by  Mrs.  Brentwood;  enough 
to  enable  him  to  chart  the  rock  on  which  his  love- 
argosy  was  drifting,  and  to  name  it — David  Kent. 

Now  to  a  well-knit  man  of  the  world — who  happens 
to  be  a  heaven-born  diplomatist  into  the  bargain — to  be 
forewarned  is  to  be  doubly  armed.  At  the  end  of  the 
half-hour  of  studious  solitude  in  the  smoking-room, 
Ormsby  had  pricked  out  his  course  on  the  chart  to  a 
boat's-length ;  had  trimmed  his  sails  to  the  minutest 
starting  of  a  sheet.  A  glance  at  his  watch  and  another 
at  the  time-table  gave  him  the  length  of  his  respite. 
Six  hours  there  were;  and  a  dining-car  dinner  inter- 
vened. Those  six  hours,  and  the  dinner,  he  decided, 
must  win  or  lose  the  race. 

Picturing  for  ourselves,  if  we  may,  how  nine  men 
out  of  ten  would  have  given  place  to  panic-ardor, 
turning  a  possible  victory  into  a  hopeless  rout,  let  us 


THE    FLESH-POTS    OF   EGYPT  53 

hold  aloof  and  mark  the  generalship  of  the  tenth,  who 
chances  to  be  the  heaven-born. 

For  five  of  the  six  precious  hours  Ormsby  merely 
saw  to  it  that  Elinor  was  judiciously  marooned.  Then 
the  dining-car  was  reopened  and  the  evening  meal  was 
announced.  Waiting  until  a  sufficient  number  of  pas- 
sengers had  gone  forward  to  insure  a  crowded  car, 
Ormsby  let  his  party  fall  in  with  the  tail  of  the  pro- 
cession, and  the  inevitable  happened.  Single  seats 
only  could  be  had,  and  Elinor  was  compelled  to  dine 
in  solemn  silence  at  a  table  with  three  strangers. 

Dinner  over,  there  remained  but  twenty  minutes 
of  the  respite;  but  the  diplomatist  kept  his  head,  going 
back  to  the  sleeping-car  with  his  charges  and  dropping 
into  the  seat  beside  Elinor  with  the  light  of  calm  assur- 
ance in  his  eye. 

"You  are  quite  comfortable?"  he  began.  "Sha'n't 
I  have  the  Presence  in  the  buffet  make  you  a  cup  of 
tea?  That  in  the  diner  didn't  deserve  the  name." 

She  was  regarding  him  with  curious  anger  in  the 
gray  eyes,  and  her  reply  quite  ignored  the  kindly 
offer  of  refreshment. 

"You  are  the  pink  of  dragomans,"  she  said.  "Don't 
you  want  to  go  and  smoke?" 

"To  be  entirely  consistent,  I  suppose  I  ought  to," 
he  confessed,  wondering  if  his  throw  had  failed.  "Do 
you  want  me  to  go?" 


54  THE   GKAFTERS 

"I  have  been  alone  all  the  afternoon :  I  can  endure  it 
a  little  while  longer,  I  presume." 

Ormsby  permitted  himself  a  single  heart-throb  of 
exultation.  He  had  deliberately  gone  about  to  break 
down  her  poise,  her  only  barrier  of  defense,  and  it 
began  to  look  as  if  he  had  succeeded. 

"I  couldn't  help  it,  you  know/'  he  said,  catching 
his  cue  swiftly.  "There  are  times  when  I'm  obliged 
to  keep  away  from  you — times  when  every  fiber  of 
me  rebels  against  the  restraints  of  the  false  position 
you  have  thrust  me  into.  When  I'm  taken  that  way 
I  don't  dare  play  with  the  fire." 

"I  wish  I  could  know  how  much  you  mean  by  that," 
she  said  musingly.  Deep  down  in  her  heart  she  knew 
she  was  as  far  as  ever  from  loving  this  man;  but  his 
love,  or  the  insistent  urging  of  it,  was  like  a  strong 
current  drifting  her  whither  she  would  not  go. 

"I  mean  all  that  an  honest  man  can  mean,"  he  re- 
joined. "I  have  fought  like  a  soldier  for  standing- 
room  in  the  place  you  have  assigned  me;  I  have  tried 
sincerely — and  stupidly,  you  will  say — to  be  merely  your 
friend,  just  the  best  friend  you  ever  had.  But  it's  no 
use.  Coming  or  going,  I  shall  always  be  your  lover." 

"Please  don't,"  she  said,  neither  coldly  nor  warmly. 
"You  are  getting  over  into  the  domain  of  the  very 
young  people  when  you  say  things  like  that." 


THE   FLESH-POTS   OF   EGYPT  55 

It  was  an  unpleasant  thing  to  say,  and  he  was  not 
beyond  wincing  a  little.  None  the  less,  he  would 
not  be  turned  aside. 

"You'll  overlook  it  in  me  if  I've  pressed  the  thing 
too  hard  on  the  side  of  sentiment,  won't  you?  Apart 
from  the  fact  that  I  feel  that  way,  I've  been  going  on 
the  supposition  that  you'd  like  it,  if  you  could  only 
make  up  your  mind  to  like  me." 

"I  do  like  you,"  she  admitted;  "more  than  any  one 
I  have  ever  known,  I  think." 

The  drumming  wheels  and  a  long-drawn  trumpet 
blast  from  the  locomotive  made  a  shield  of  sound  to 
isolate  them.  The  elderly  banker  in  the  opposite  section 
was  nodding  over  his  newspaper;  and  the  newly  married 
ones  were  oblivious,  each  to  all  else  but  the  other.  Mrs. 
Brentwood  was  apparently  sleeping  peacefully  three 
seats  away ;  and  Penelope  was  invisible. 

"There  was  a  time  when  I  should  have  begged  hard 
for  something  more,  Elinor;  but  now  I'm  willing  to 
take  what  I  can  get,  and  be  thankful.  Will  you  give 
me  the  right  to  make  you  as  happy  as  I  can  on  the 
unemotional  basis?" 

She  felt  herself  slipping. 

"If  you  could  fully  understand — " 

"I  understand  that  you  don't  love  me,  in  the  novel- 
ist's sense  of  the  word,  and  I  am  not  asking  more  than 


56  THE    GEAFTERS 

you  can  give.  But  if  you  can  give  me  the  little  now, 
and  more  when  I  have  won  it — don't  curl  your  lip  at 
me,  please :  I'm  trying  to  put  it  as  mildly  as  I  can." 

She  was  looking  at  him  level-eyed,  and  he  could 
have  sworn  that  she  was  never  calmer  or  more  self- 
possessed. 

"I  don't  know  why  you  should  want  my  promise — 
or  any  woman's — on  such  conditions,"  she  said  evenly. 

"But  I  do,"  he  insisted. 

The  lights  of  a  town  suburb  were  flitting  past  the 
windows,  and  the  monotonous  song  of  the  tires  was 
drowned  in  the  shrill  crescendo  of  the  brakes.  She 
turned  from  him  suddenly  and  laid  her  cheek  against 
the  grateful  cool  of  the  window-pane.  But  when  he 
took  her  hand  she  did  not  withdraw  it. 

"Is  it  mine,  Elinor?"  he  whispered.  "You  see,  I'm 
not  asking  much." 

"Is  it  worth  taking— by  itself?" 

"You  make  me  very  happy,"  he  said  quietly;  and 
just  then  the  train  stopped  with  a  jerk,  and  a  shuf- 
fling bustle  of  station-platform  noises  floated  in 
through  the  open  deck  transoms  of  the  car. 

As  if  the  solution  of  continuity  had  been  a  call  to 
arouse  her,  Elinor  freed  her  hand  with  a  swift  little 
wrench  and  sat  bolt  upright  in  her  corner. 

"This  station — do  you  know  the  name  of  it?"  she 


THE    FLESH-POTS    OF   EGYPT  57 

asked,  fighting  hard  for  the  self-control  that  usually 
came  so  easily. 

Ormsby  consulted  his  watch. 

"I  am  not  quite  sure.    It  ought  to  be — " 

He  broke  off  when  he  saw  that  she  was  no  longer 
listening  to  him.  There  was  a  stir  in  the  forward 
vestibule,  and  the  porter  came  in  with  a  hand-bag. 
At  his  heels  was  a  man  in  a  rough-weather  box- 
coat;  a  youngish  man,  clean-shaven  and  wind-tanned 
to  a  healthy  bronze,  with  an  eager  face  and  alert  eyes 
that  made  an  instant  inventory  of  the  car  and  its 
complement  of  passengers.  So  much  Ormsby  saw. 
Then  Penelope  stood  up  in  her  place  to  greet  the  new- 
comer. 

"Why,  Mr.  Kent!"  she  exclaimed.  "Are  you  really 
going  on  with  us?  How  nice  of  you!" 

Elinor  turned  coolly  upon  her  seat-mate,  self-posses- 
sion once  more  firmly  seated  in  the  saddle. 

"Did  you  know  Mr.  Kent  was  going  to  board  the 
train  here?"  she  asked  abruptly. 

"Do  you  mean  the  gentleman  Penelope  has  waylaid? 
I  haven't  the  pleasure  of  his  acquaintance.  Will  you 
introduce  us  ?" 


JOURNEYS  END — 

It  had  been  a  day  of  upsettings  for  David  Kent,  be- 
ginning with  the  late  breakfast  at  which  Neltje,  the 
night  watchman  at  the  railway  station,  had  brought 
him  Penelope's  telegram. 

At  ten  he  had  a  case  in  court :  Shotwell  vs.  Western 
Pacific  Co.,  damages  for  stock-killing;  for  the  plaintiff 
— Hawk;  for  the  defendant — Kent.  With  the  thought 
that  he  was  presently  going  to  see  Elinor  again,  Kent 
went  gaily  to  the  battle  legal,  meaning  to  wring  vic- 
tory out  of  a  jury  drawn  for  the  most  part  from  the 
plaintiff's  stock-raising  neighbors.  By  dint  of  great 
perseverance  he  managed  to  prolong  the  fight  until  the 
middle  of  the  afternoon,  was  worsted,  as  usual,  and 
so  far  lost  his  temper  as  to  get  himself  called  down 
by  the  judge,  MacFarlane. 

Whereupon  he  went  back  to  the  Farquhar  Build- 
ing and  to  his  office  and  sat  down  at  the  type-writer 
to  pound  out  a  letter  to  the  general  counsel,  resigning 

(58) 


JOURNEYS   END—  59 

his  sinecure.  The  Shotwell  case  was  the  third  he  had 
lost  for  the  company  in  a  single  court  term.  Justice 
for  the  railroad  company,  under  present  agrarian  con- 
ditions, was  not  to  be  had  in  the  lower  courts,  and  he 
was  weary  of  fighting  the  losing  battle.  Therefore — 

In  the  midst  of  the  type-rattling  the  boy  that  served 
the  few  occupied  offices  in  the  Farquhar  Building  had 
brought  the  afternoon  mail.  It  included  a  letter  from 
Loring,  and  there  was  another  reversive  upheaval  for 
the  exile.  Loring's  business  at  the  capital  was  no 
longer  a  secret.  He  had  been  tendered  the  resident 
management  of  the  Western  Pacific,  with  headquarters 
on  the  ground,  and  had  accepted.  His  letter  was  a  brief 
note,  asking  Kent  to  report  at  once  for  legal  duty  in  the 
larger  field. 

"I  am  not  fairly  in  the  saddle  yet,  and  shall  not 
be  for  a  week  or  so,"  wrote  the  newly  appointed  man- 
ager. "But  I  find  I  am  going  to  need  a  level-headed 
lawyer  at  my  elbow  from  the  jump — one  who  knows 
the  State  political  ropes  and  isn't  afraid  of  a  scrap. 
Come  in  on  Number  Three  to-day,  if  you  can;  if  not, 
send  a  wire  and  say  when  I  may  look  for  you.  Or, 
better  still,  wire  anyway." 

David  Kent  struggled  with  his  emotions  until  he 
had  got  his  feet  down  to  the  solid  earth  again.  Then 
he  tore  up  the  half-written  resignation  and  began  to 
smite  things  in  order  for  the  flight.  Could  he  make 


60  THE    GRAFTERS 

Number  Three?  Since  that  was  the  train  named  in 
Penelope's  message,  nothing  short  of  a  catastrophe 
should  prevent  his  making  it. 

He  did  make  it,  with  an  hour  to  spare;  an  hour 
which  he  proceeded  to  turn  into  a  time  of  sharp  trial 
for  the  patient  telegraph  operator  at  the  station,  with 
his  badgerings  of  the  man  for  news  of  Number  Three. 
The  train  reported — he  took  it  as  a  special  miracle 
wrought  in  his  behalf  that  the*  Flyer  was  for  this  once 
abreast  of  her  schedule — he  fell  to  tramping  up  and 
down  the  long  platform,  deep  in  anticipative  prefigur- 
ings.  The  mills  of  the  years  grind  many  grists  besides 
the  trickling  stream  of  the  hours:  would  he  find  Miss 
Brentwood  as  he  had  left  her?  Could  he  be  sure  of 
meeting  her  on  the  frank,  friendly  footing  of  the  Croy- 
don  summer?  He  feared  not;  feared  all  things — lover- 
like. 

He  hoped  there  would  be  no  absence-reared  barrier 
to  be  painfully  leveled.  A  man  among  men,  a  leader 
in  some  sort,  and  in  battle  a  soldier  who  could  hew 
his  way  painstakingly,  if  not  dramatically,  to  his  end, 
David  Kent  was  no  carpet  knight,  and  he  knew  his 
lack.  Would  Elinor  make  things  easy  for  him,  as  she 
used  to  daily  in  the  somewhat  difficult  social  atmos- 
phere of  the  exclusive  summer  hotel? 

Measuring  it  out  in  all  its  despairing  length  and 
breadth  after  the  fact,  he  was  deeply  grateful  to  Pe- 


JOUKNEYS   END—  61 

nelope.  Missing  her  ready  help  at  the  moment  of  cata- 
clysms when  he  entered  the  sleeping-car,  he  might  have 
betrayed  himself.  His  first  glance  lighted  on  Elinor 
and  Ormsby,  and  he  needed  no  gloss  on  the  love-text. 
He  had  delayed  too  long;  had  asked  too  much  of  the 
Fates,  and  Atropos,  the  scissors-bearing  sister,  had 
snipped  his  thread  of  hope. 

It  is  one  of  the  consequences  of  civilization  that  we 
are  denied  the  privilege  of  unmasking  at  the  behest  of 
the  elemental  emotions;  that  we  are  constrained  to 
bleed  decorously.  Making  shift  to  lean  heavily  on 
Penelope,  Kent  came  through  without  doing  or  saying 
anything  unseemly.  Mrs.  Brentwood,  who  had  been 
sleeping  with  one  eye  open,  and  that  eye  upon  Elinor 
and  Ormsby,  made  sure  that  she  had  now  no  special 
reason  to  be  ungracious  to  David  Kent.  For  the 
others,  Ormsby  was  good-naturedly  suave;  Elinor  was 
by  turns  unwontedly  kind  and  curiously  silent;  and 
Penelope — but,  as  we  say,  it  was  to  Penelope  that  Kent 
owed  most. 

So  it  came  about  that  the  outcome  of  the  cataclysm 
was  a  thing  which  happens  often  enough  in  a  conven- 
tionalized world.  David  Kent,  with  his  tragedy  fresh 
upon  him,  dropped  informally  into  place  as  one  of  the 
party  of  five ;  and  of  all  the  others,  Penelope  alone  sus- 
pected how  hard  he  was  hit.  And  when  all  was  said; 
when  the  new  modus  vivendi  had  been  fairly  estab- 


62  THE    GEAFTERS 

lished  and  the  hour  grew  late,  Kent  went  voluntarily 
with  Ormsby  to  the  smoking-compartment,  "to  play  the 
string  out  decently/'  as  he  afterward  confessed  to 
Loring. 

"I  see  you  know  how  to  get  th&  most  comfort  out  of 
your  tobacco/'  said  the  club-man,  when  they  were  com- 
panionably  settled  in  the  men's  room  and  Kent  pro- 
duced his  pipe  and  tobacco  pouch.  "I  prefer  the  pipe 
myself,  for  a  steady  thing;  but  at  this  time  of  night  a 
light  Castilla  fits  me  pretty  well.  Try  one?"  tendering 
his  cigar-case. 

Fighting  shrewdly  against  a  natural  prompting  to 
regard  Ormsby  as  an  hereditary  enemy,  Kent  forced 
himself  to  be  neighborly. 

"I  don't  mind,"  he  said,  returning  the  pipe  to  its 
case.  And  when  the  Havanas  were  well  alight,  and 
the  talk  had  circled  down  upon  the  political  situa- 
tion in  the  State,  he  was  able  to  bear  his  part  with  a 
fair  exterior,  giving  Ormsby  an  impressionistic  outline 
of  the  late  campaign  and  the  conditions  that  had  made 
the  sweeping  triumph  of  the  People's  Party  possible. 

"We  have  been  coming  to  it  steadily  through  the  last 
administration,  and  a  part  of  the  preceding  one/'  he  ex- 
plained. "Last  year  the  drought  cut  the  cereals  in 
half,  and  the  country  was  too  new  to  stand  it  without 
borrowing.  There  was  little  local  capital,  and  the  east- 
ern article  was  hungry,  taking  all  the  interest  the  law 


JOUKNEYS   END—  63 

s 

allows,  and  as  much  more  as  it  could  get.  This  year  the 
crop  broke  all  records  for  abundance,  but  the  price  is 
down  and  the  railroads,  trying  to  recoup  for  two  bad 
years,  have  stiffened  the  freight  rates.  The  net  result 
is  our  political  overturn." 

"Then  the  railroads  and  the  corporations  are  not  pri- 
marily to  blame  ?"  said  Ormsby. 

"Oh,  no.  Corporations  here,  as  elsewhere,  are  look- 
ing out  for  the  present  dollar,  but  if  the  country  were 
generally  prosperous,  the  people  would  pay  the  tax 
carelessly,  as  they  do  in  the  older  sections.  With  us  it 
has  been  a  sort  of  Donnybrook  Fair:  the  agricultural 
voter  has  shillalahed  the  head  he  could  reach  most 
easily." 

The  New  Yorker  nodded.  His  millions  were  solidly 
placed,  and  he  took  no  more  than  a  sportsman's  interest 
in  the  fluctuations  of  the  stock  market. 

"Of  course,  there  have  been  all  sorts  of  rumors  East : 
Trnll'  prophecies  that  the  triumph  of  the  new  party 
means  an  era  of  unexampled  prosperity  for  the  State — 
and  by  consequence  for  western  stocks ;  'bear'  growlings 
that  things  are  sure  to  go  to  the  bow-wows  under  the 
Bucks  regime.  What  do  you  think  of  it  ?" 

Kent  blew  a  series  of  smoke  rings  and  watched  them 
rise  to  become  a  part  of  the  stratified  tobacco  cloud 
overhead  before  replying. 

"I  may  as  well  confess  that  I  am  not  entirely  an  un- 


64  THE    GEAFTEKS 

prejudiced  observer/'  he  admitted.  "For  one  thing,  I 
am  in  the  legal  department  of  one  of  the  best-hated  of 
the  railroads;  and  for  another,  Governor  Bucks,  Meigs, 
the  attorney-general,  and  Hendricks,  the  new  secretary 
of  State,  are  men  whom  I  know  as,  it  is  safe  to  say,  the 
general  public  doesn't  know  them.  If  I  could  be  sure 
that  these  three  men  are  going  to  be  able  to  control  their 
own  party  majority  in  the  Assembly,  I  should  take  the 
first  train  East  and  make  my  fortune  selling  tips  in 
Wall  Street." 

"You  put  it  graphically.  Then  the  Bucks  idea  is 
likely  to  prove  a  disturbing  element  on  'Change  ?" 

"It  is ;  always  providing  it  can  dominate  its  own  ma- 
jority. But  this  is  by  no  means  certain.  The  political 
earthquake  is  essentially  a  popular  protest  against  hard 
conditions  brought  about,  as  the  voters  seem  to  believe, 
by  the  oppressions  of  the  alien  corporations  and  extor- 
tionate railroad  rates.  Yet  there  are  plenty  of  steady- 
going,  conservative  men  in  the  movement;  men  who 
have  no  present  idea  of  revolutionizing  things.  Mars- 
ton,  the  lieutenant-governor,  is  one  of  that  kind.  It  all 
depends  on  whether  these  men  will  allow  themselves  to 
be  whipped  into  line  by  the  leaders,  who,  as  I  am  very 
well  convinced,  are  a  set  of  conscienceless  demagogues, 
fighting  solely  for  their  own  hand." 

Ormsby  nodded  again. 


JOURNEYS   END—  65 

"You  are  likely  to  have  good  hunting  this  winter, 
Mr.  Kent.  It  hasn't  begun  yet,  I  take  it?" 

"Oh,  no;  the  Assembly  does  not  convene  for  a  fort- 
night, and  nobody  short  of  an  inspired  prophet  can 
foretell  what  legislation  will  be  sprung.  But  one  thing 
is  safe  to  count  on :  the  leaders  are  out  for  spoils.  They 
mean  to  rob  somebody,  and,  if  my  guess  is  worth  any- 
thing, they  are  sharp  enough  to  try  first  to  get  their 
schemes  legalized  by  having  enabling  laws  passed  by  the 
Assembly." 

"Um,"  said  the  eastern  man.  Then  he  took  the  meas- 
ure of  his  companion  in  a  shrewd  overlook.  "You  are 
the  man  on  the  ground,  Mr.  Kent,  and  I'll  ask  a 
straightforward  question.  If  you  had  a  friend  owning 
stock  in  one  of  the  involved  railways,  what  would  you 
advise?" 

Kent  smiled. 

"We  needn't  make  it  a  hypothetical  case.  If  I  had 
the  right  to  advise  Mrs.  Brentwood  and  her  daughters, 
I  should  counsel  them  to  sit  tight  in  the  boat  for  the 
present." 

"Would  you  ?  But  Western  Pacific  has  gone  off  several 
points  already." 

"I  know  it  has;  and  unfortunately,  Mrs.  Brentwood 
bought  in  at  the  top  of  the  market.  That  is  why  I  coun- 
sel delay.  If  she  sells  now,  she  is  sure  to  lose.  If  she 


66  THE   GRAFTERS 

holds  on,  there  is  an  even  chance  for  a  spasmodic  up- 
ward reaction  before  worse  things  happen." 

"Perhaps:  you  know  more  about  the  probabilities 
than  I  pretend  to.  But  on  the  other  hand,  she  may  lose 
more  if  she  holds  on." 

Kent  bit  deep  into  his  cigar. 

"We  must  see  to  it  that  she  doesn't  lose,  Mr.  Orms- 
by." 

The  club-man  laughed  broadly. 

"Isn't  that  a  good  bit  like  saying  that  the  shallop 
must  see  to  it  that  the  wind  doesn't  blow  too  hard 
for  it?" 

"Possibly.  But  in  the  sorriest  wreck  there  is  usually 
some  small  chance  for  salvage.  I  understand  Mrs. 
Brentwood's  holding  is  not  very  large  ?" 

"A  block  of  some  three  thousand  shares,  held  jointly 
by  her  and  her  two  daughters,  I  believe." 

"Exactly:  not  enough  to  excite  anybody's  cupidity; 
and  yet  enough  to  turn  the  scale  if  there  should  ever  be 
a  fight  for  a  majority  control." 

"There  is  no  such  fight  in  prospect,  is  there  ?" 

"No ;  not  that  I  know  of.  But  I  was  thinking  of  the 
possibilities.  If  a  smash  comes  there  will  be  a  good 
deal  of  horse-swapping  in  the  middle  of  the  stream — 
buying  up  of  depressed  stocks  by  people  who  need  the 
lines  worse  than  the  original  owners  do." 


JOUKNEYS   END—  67 

"I  see/'  said  Ormsby.  "Then  you  would  counsel  de- 
lay?" 

"I  should;  and  I'll  go  a  step  farther.  I  am  on  the 
inside,  in  a  way,  and  any  hint  I  can  give  you  for  Miss 
— for  Mrs.  Brentwood's  benefit  shall  be  promptly  forth- 
coming." 

"By  Jove!  that's  decent,"  said  Ormsby,  heartily. 
"You  are  a  friend  worth  having,  Mr.  Kent.  But  which 
'inside'  do  you  mean — the  railroad  or  the  political  ?" 

"Oh,  the  railroad,  of  course.  And  while  I  think  of  it, 
my  office  will  be  in  the  Quintard  Building ;  and  you — I 
suppose  you  will  put  up  at  the  Wellington  ?" 

"For  the  present,  we  all  shall.  It  is  Mrs.  Brentwood's 
notion  to  take  a  furnished  house  later  on  for  herself  and 
daughters,  if  she  can  find  one.  I'll  keep  in  touch  with 
you." 

"Do.  It  may  come  to  a  bit  of  quick  wiring  when  our 
chance  arrives.  You  know  Loring — Grantham  Lor- 
ing?" 

"Passably  well.  I  came  across  him  one  summer  in 
the  mountains  of  Peru,  where  he  was  managing  a  rail- 
road. He  is  a  mighty  good  sort.  I  had  mountain  fever, 
and  he  took  me  in  and  did  for  me." 

"He  is  with  us  now,"  said  David  Kent;  "the  newly 
appointed  general  manager  of  the  Western  Pacific." 

"Good !"  said  the  club-man.    "I  think  a  lot  of  him ; 


68  THE   GRAFTERS 

he  is  an  all-around  dependable  fellow,  and  plenty  capa- 
ble. I'm  glad  to  know  he  has  caught  on  higher  up." 

The  locomotive  whistle  was  droning  again,  and  a 
dodging  procession  of  red-eyed  switch-lights  nicked  past 
the  windows.  Kent  stood  up  and  flung  away  the  stump 
of  his  cigar. 

"The  capital,"  he  announced.  "I'll  go  back  with  you 
and  help  gut  with  the  shawl-strap  things.'*  And  in  the 
vestibule  he  added:  "I  spoke  of  Loring  because  he  will 
be  with  us  in  anything  we  have  to  do  in  Mrs.  Brent- 
wood's  behalf.  Look  him  up  when  you  have  time — 
fourth  floor  of  the  Quintard." 


VI 

OF  THE   MAKING   OP   LAWS 

The  session,  the  shortest  in  the  history  of  the  State, 
and  thus  far  the  least  eventful,  was  nearing  its  close; 
and  the  alarmists  who  had  prophesied  evil  and  evil  only 
of  the  "Populist"  victory  were  fast  losing  credit  with 
the  men  of  their  own  camp  and  with  the  country  at 
large. 

After  the  orthodox  strife  over  the  speakership  of  the 
House,  and  the  equally  orthodox  wrangle  over  contested 
seats,  the  State  Assembly  had  settled  down  to  routine 
business,  despatching  it  with  such  unheard-of  celerity 
as  to  win  columns  of  approval  from  the  State  press  as  a 
whole;  though  there  were  not  wanting  a  few  radical 
editors  to  raise  the  ante-election  cry  of  reform,  and  to 
ask  pointedly  when  it  was  to  begin. 

Notwithstanding  the  lack  of  alarms,  however,  the  six 
weeks  had  been  a  period  of  unceasing  vigilance  on  the 
part  of  the  interests  which  were  supposed  to  be  in  jeop- 
ardy. Every  alien  corporation  owning  property  and 

(69) 


70  THE    GEAFTERS 

doing  business  in  the  State  had  its  quota  of  watchful 
defenders  on  the  ground;  men  who  came  and  went,  in 
the  lobbies  of  the  capitol,  in  the  visitors'  galleries,  at 
the  receptions;  men  who  said  little,  but  who  saw  and 
heard  all  things  down  to  the  small  talk  of  the  corridors 
and  the  clubs,  and  the  gossip  of  the  hotel  rotundas. 

David  Kent  was  of  this  silent  army  of  observation, 
doing  watch-dog  duty  for  the  Western  Pacific ;  thankful 
enough,  if  the  truth  be  told,  to  have  a  thing  to  do  which 
kept  him  from  dwelling  overmuch  upon  the  wreck  of  his 
hopes.  But  in  the  closing  days  of  the  session,  when  a 
despatchful  Assembly,  anxious  to  be  quit  of  its  task,  had 
gone  into  night  sittings,  the  anodyne  drug  of  work  be- 
gan to  lose  its  effect. 

The  Brentwoods  had  taken  furnished  apartments  in 
Tejon  Avenue,  two  squares  from  the  capitol,  and  Kent 
had  called  no  oftener  than  good  breeding  prescribed. 
Yet  their  accessibility,  and  his  unconquerable  desire  to 
sear  his  wound  in  the  flame  that  had  caused  it,  were  con- 
stant temptations,  and  he  was  battling  with  them  for 
the  hundredth  time  on  the  Friday  night  when  he  sat  in 
the  House  gallery  listening  to  a  perfunctory  debate 
which  concerned  itself  with  a  bill  touching  State  water- 
ways. 

"Heavens !  This  thing  is  getting  to  be  little  short  of 
deadly!"  fumed  Crenshawe,  his  right-hand  neighbor, 
who  was  also  a  member  of  the  corps  of  observation. 


OF   THE   MAKING   OF   LAWS  71 

"I'm  going  to  the  club  for  a  game  of  pool.  Won't  you 
come  along?" 

Kent  nodded  and  left  his  seat  with  the  bored  one. 
But  in  the  great  rotunda  he  changed  his  mind. 

"You'll  find  plenty  of  better  players  than  I  am  at  the 
club,"  he  said  in  extenuation.  "I  think  I'll  smoke  a 
whiff  or  two  here  and  go  back.  They  can't  hold  on 
much  longer  for  to-night." 

Five  minutes  later,  when  he  had  lighted  a  cigar  and 
was  glancing  over  the  evening  paper,  two  other  members 
of  the  corporation  committee  of  safety  came  down 
from  the  Senate  gallery  and  stopped  opposite  Kent's 
pillar  to  struggle  into  their  overcoats. 

"It's  precisely  as  I  wrote  our  people  two  weeks  ago — 
a  timidity  scare,  pure  and  simple,"  one  of  them  was 
saying.  "I've  a  mind  to  start  home  to-morrow.  There 
is  nothing  doing  here,  or  going  to  be  done." 

"No,"  said  the  other.  "If  it  wasn't  for  House  Bill 
Twenty-nine,  I'd  go  to-night.  They  will  adjourn  to- 
morrow or  Monday." 

"House  Bill  Twenty-nine  is  much  too  dead  to  bury," 
was  the  reassuring  rejoinder.  "The  committee  is  ours, 
and  the  bill  will  not  be  heard  of  again  at  this  session. 
If  that  is  all  you  are  holding  on  for — " 

They  passed  out  of  earshot,  and  Kent  folded  his  news- 
paper absently.  House  Bill  Twenty-nine  had  been  the 
one  measure  touching  the  sensitive  "vested  interests"; 


72  THE   GRAFTERS 

the  one  measure  for  the  suppression  of  which  the  cor- 
porations' lobby  had  felt  called  on  to  take  steps.  It 
was  an  omnibus  bill  put  forth  as  a  substitute  for  the  ex- 
isting law  defining  the  status  of  foreign  corporations. 
It  had  originated  in  the  governor's  office, — a  fact  which 
Kent  had  ferreted  out  within  twenty-four  hours  of  its 
first  reading, — and  for  that  reason  he  had  procured  a 
printed  copy,  searching  it  diligently  for  the  hidden 
menace  he  was  sure  it  embodied. 

When  the  search  proved  fruitless,  he  had  seen  the  bill 
pass  the  House  by  a  safe  majority,  had  followed  it  to  the 
Senate,  and  in  a  cunningly  worded  amendment  tacked 
on  in  the  upper  house  had  found  what  he  was  seeking. 
Under  the  existing  law  foreign  corporations  were  sub- 
ject to  State  supervision,  and  were  dealt  with  as  pre- 
sumably unfriendly  aliens.  But  the  Senate  amendment 
to  House  Bill  Twenty-nine  fairly  swept  the  interstate 
corporations,  as  such,  out  of  existence,  by  making  it  ob- 
ligatory upon  them  to  acquire  the  standing  of  local  cor- 
porations. Charters  were  to  be  refiled  with  the  secretary 
of  State ;  resident  directories  and  operating  headquarters 
were  to  be  established  within  the  boundaries  and  juris- 
diction of  the  State ;  in  short,  the  State  proposed,  by  the 
terms  of  the  new  law,  to  deal  only  with  creatures  of  its 
own  creation. 

Kent  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  the  fine  hand  of  the 
junto  in  all  this.  It  was  a  still  hunt  in  which  the  long- 


OP   THE   MAKING   OF   LAWS  73 

est  way  around  was  the  shortest  way  home.  Like  all 
new-country  codes,  the  organic  law  of  the  State  favored 
local  corporations,  and  it  might  be  argued  that  a  bill 
placing  the  foreign  companies  on  a  purely  local  footing 
was  an  unmixed  blessing  to  the  aliens.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  an  unprincipled  executive  might  easily  make 
the  new  law  an  engine  of  extortion.  To  go  no  further 
into  the  matter  than  the  required  refiling  of  charters: 
the  State  constitution  gave  the  secretary  of  State  quasi- 
judicial  powers.  It  was  within  his  province  to  pass 
upon  the  applications  for  chartered  rights,  and  to  deny 
them  if  the  question  pro  bono  publico  were  involved. 

Kent  put  two  and  two  together,  saw  the  wide  door  of 
exactions  which  might  be  opened,  and  passed  the  word 
of  warning  among  his  associates;  after  which  he  had 
watched  the  course  of  the  amended  House  Bill  Twenty- 
nine  with  interest  sharp-set,  planning  meanwhile  with 
Hildreth,  the  editor  of  the  Daily  Argus,  an  expose 
which  should  make  plain  the  immense  possibilities  for 
corruption  opened  up  by  the  proposed  law;  a  journal- 
istic salvo  of  publicity  to  be  fired  as  a  last  resort. 

The  measure  as  amended  had  passed  the  Senate  with- 
out debate,  and  had  gone  back  to  the  House.  Here,  after 
the  second  reading,  and  in  the  very  hour  when  the 
Argus  editorial  was  getting  itself  cast  in  the  linotypes, 
there  was  a  hitch.  The  member  from  the  Eio  Blanco, 
^favoring  the  measure  in  all  its  parts,  and  fearful  only 


74  THE    GRAFTERS 

lest  corporation  gold  might  find  a  technical  flaw  in  it, 
moved  that  it  be  referred  to  the  committee  on  judiciary 
for  a  report  on  its  constitutionality;  and,  accordingly, 
to  the  committee  on  judiciary  it  had  gone. 

Kent  recalled  the  passing  of  the  crisis,  remembering 
how  he  had  hastened  to  telephone  the  Argus  editor  to 
kill  the  expose*  at  the  last  moment.  The  incident  was 
now  a  month  in  the  past,  and  the  committee  had  not 
yet  reported;  would  never  report,  Kent  imagined.  He 
knew  the  personnel  of  the  committee  on  judiciary; 
knew  that  at  least  three  members  of  it  were  down  on 
the  list,  made  up  at  the  beginning  of  the  session  by  his 
colleagues  in  the  army  of  observation,  as  "approach- 
ables".  Also,  he  knew  by  inference  at  least,  that  these 
three  men  had  been  approached,  not  without  success, 
and  that  House  Bill  Twenty-nine,  with  its  fee-gathering 
amendment,  was  safely  shelved. 

"It's  an  ill-smelling  muck-heap!"  he  frowned,  re- 
calling the  incidents  of  the  crisis  at  the  suggestion  let 
fall  by  the  two  outgoing  lobbyists.  "And  so  much  of  this 
dog-watch  as  isn't  sickeningly  demoralizing  is  deadly 
dull,  as  Crenshawe  puts  it.  If  I  had  anywhere  to  go, 
I'd  cut  the  galleries  for  to-night." 

He  was  returning  the  newspaper  to  his  pocket  when 
it  occurred  to  him  that  his  object  in  buying  it  had  been 
to  note  the  stock  quotations;  a  daily  duty  which,  for 
Elinor's  sake,  he  had  never  omitted.  Whereupon  he  re- 


OF   THE   MAKING   OF   LAWS  75 

opened  it  and  ran  his  eye  down  the  lists.  There  was  a 
decided  upward  tendency  in  westerns.  Overland  Short 
Line  had  gained  two  points ;  and  Western  Pacific — 

He  held  the  paper  under  the  nearest  electric  globe  to 
make  sure:  Western  Pacific,  preferred,  was  quoted  at 
fifty-eight  and  a  half,  which  was  one  point  and  a  half 
above  the  Brentwood  purchase  price. 

One  minute  later  an  excited  life-saver  was  shut  in 
the  box  of  the  public  telephone,  gritting  his  teeth  at 
the  inanity  of  the  central  operator  who  insisted  on  giv- 
ing him  "A-1224"  instead  of  "A-I234,"  the  Hotel 
Wellington. 

"No,  no!  Can't  you  understand?  I  want  twelve- 
thirty-four;  one,  two,  three,  four;  the  Hotel  Welling- 
ton." 

There  was  more  skirling  of  bells,  another  nerve-try- 
ing wait,  and  at  last  the  clerk  of  the  hotel  answered. 

"What  name  did  you  say?  Oh,  it's  you,  is  it,  Mr. 
Kent?  Ormsby?  Mr.  Brookes  Ormsby?  No,  he  isn't 
here;  he  went  out  about  two  minutes  ago.  What's  that 
you  say?  Damn?  Well,  I'm  sorry,  too.  No  message 
that  I  can  take?  All  right.  Good-by." 

This  was  the  beginning.  For  the  middle  part  Kent 
burst  out  of  the  telephone-box  and  took  the  nearest  short- 
cut through  the  capitol  grounds  for  the  street-car  cor- 
ner. At  a  quarter  of  nine  he  was  cross-questioning  the 
clerk  face  to  face  in  the  lobby  of  the  Wellington.  There 


76  THE   GRAFTERS 

was  little  more  to  be  learned  about  Ormsby.  The  club- 
man had  left  his  key  and  gone  out.  He  was  in  evening 
dress,  and  had  taken  a  cab  at  the  hotel  entrance. 

Kent  dashed  across  to  his  rooms  and,  in  a  feverish 
race  against  time,  made  himself  fit  to  chase  a  man  in 
evening  dress.  There  was  no  car  in  sight  when  he  came 
down,  and  he,  too,  took  a  cab  with  an  explosive  order 
to  the  driver:  "124  Tejon  Avenue,  and  be  quick 
about  it!" 

It  was  the  housemaid  that  answered  his  ring  at  the 
door  of  the  Brentwood  apartment.  She  was  a  Swede,  a 
recent  importation;  hence  Kent  learned  nothing  be- 
yond the  bare  fact  that  the  ladies  had  gone  out.  "With 
Mr.  Ormsby?"  he  asked. 

"Yaas ;  Aye  tank  it  vill  pee  dat  yentlemans." 

The  pursuer  took  the  road  again,  rather  unhopefully. 
There  were  a  dozen  places  where  Ormsby  might  have 
taken  his  charges.  Among  them  there  was  the  legislative 
reception  at  Portia  Van  Brock's.  Kent  flipped  a  figura- 
tive coin,  and  gave  the  order  for  Alameda  Square.  The 
reception  was  perhaps  the  least  unlikely  place  of  the 
dozen. 

He  was  no  more  than  fashionably  late  at  the  Van 
Brock  house,  and  fortunately  he  was  able  to  reckon  him- 
self among  the  chosen  few  for  whom  Miss  Portia's  door 
swung  on  hospitable  hinges  at  all  hours.  Loring  had 
known  her  in  Washington,  and  he  had  stood  sponsor  for 


OF   THE   MAKING   OF   LAWS  77 

Kent  in  the  first  week  of  the  exile's  residence  at  the 
capital.  Thereafter  she  had  taken  Kent  up  on  his  own 
account,  and  by  now  he  was  deep  in  her  debt.  For  one 
thing,  she  had  set  the  fashion  in  the  matter  of  legislative 
receptions — her  detractors,  knowing  nothing  whatever 
about  it,  hinted  that  she  had  been  an  amateur  social 
lobbyist  in  Washington,  playing  the  game  for  the  pure 
zest  of  it — and  at  these  functions  Kent  had  learned 
many  things  pertinent  to  his  purpose  as  watch-dog  for 
the  railroad  company  and  legal  adviser  to  his  chief — 
things  not  named  openly  on  the  floor  of  the  House  or 
of  the  Senate  chamber. 

There  was  a  crush  in  the  ample  mansion  in  Alameda 
Square,  as  there  always  was  at  Miss  Van  Brock's  "open 
evenings,"  and  when  Kent  came  down  from  the  cloak- 
room he  had  to  inch  his  way  by  littles  through  the 
crowded  reception-parlors  in  the  search  for  the  Brent- 
wood  party.  It  was  unsuccessful  at  first;  but  later, 
catching  a  glimpse  of  Elinor  at  the  piano,  and  another 
of  Penelope  inducting  an  up-country  legislator  into  the 
mysteries  of  social  small-talk,  he  breathed  freer.  His 
haphazard  guess  had  hit  the  mark,  and  the  finding  of 
Ormsby  was  now  only  a  question  of  moments. 

It  was  Miss  Van  Brock  herself  who  told  him  where 
to  look  for  the  club-man — though  not  at  his  first  ask- 
ing. 

"You  did  come,  then,"  she  said,  giving  him  her  hand 


78  THE   GRAFTERS 

with  a  frank  little  smile  of  welcome.  "Some  one  said 
you  were  not  going  to  be  frivolous  any  more,  and  I  won- 
dered if  you  would  take  it  out  on  me.  Have  you  been 
at  the  night  session  ?" 

"Yes ;  at  what  you  and  your  frivolities  have  left  of  it. 
A  good  third  of  the  Solons  seem  to  be  sitting  in  per- 
manence in  Alameda  Square." 

"'Solons',"  she  repeated.  "That  recalls  Editor 
Brownlo's  little  joke — only  he  didn't  mean  it.  He  wrote 
of  them  as  'Solons/  but  the  printer  got  it  'solans'.  The 
member  from  Caliente  read  the  article  and  the  word 
stuck  in  his  mind.  In  an  unhappy  hour  he  asked  Col- 
onel Mack's  boy — Harry,  the  irrepressible,  you  know — 
to  look  it  up  for  him.  Harry  did  it,  and  of  course  took 
the  most  public  occasion  he  could  find  to  hand  in  his 
answer.  'It's  geese,  Mr.  Hackett!'  he  announced  tri- 
umphantly; and  after  we  were  all  through  laughing  at 
him  the  member  from  the  warm  place  turned  it  just 
as  neatly  as  a  veteran.  'Well,  I'm  Hackett,'  he  said." 

David  Kent  laughed,  as  he  was  in  duty  bound,  but  he 
still  had  Ormsby  on  his  mind. 

"I  see  you  have  Mrs.  Brentwood  and  her  daughters 
here:  can  you  tell  me  where  I  can  find  Mr.  Brookes 
Ormsby?" 

"I  suppose  I  could  if  I  should  try.  But  you  mustn't 
hurry  me.  There  is  a  vacant  corner  in  that  davenport 


OF   THE   MAKING   OF   LAWS  79 

beyond  the  piano :  please  put  me  there  and  fetch  me  an 
ice.    I'll  wait  for  you." 

He  did  as  he  was  bidden,  and  when  she  was  served  he 
stood  over  her,  wondering,  as  other  men  had  wondered, 
what  was  the  precise  secret  of  her  charm.  Loring  had 
told  him  Miss  Van  Brock's  story.  She  was  southern 
born,  the  only  child  of  a  somewhat  ill-considered  match 
between  a  young  California  lawyer,  wire-pulling  in  the 
national  capital  in  the  interest  of  the  Central  Pacific 
Railroad,  and  a  Virginia  belle  tasting  the  delights  of 
her  first  winter  in  Washington. 

Later,  the  young  lawyer's  state,  or  his  employers,  had 
sent  him  to  Congress ;  and  Portia,  left  motherless  in  her 
middle  childhood,  had  grown  up  in  an  atmosphere  of. 
statecraft,  or  what  passes  for  such,  in  an  era  of  frank 
commercialism.  Inheriting  her  mother's  rare  beauty  of 
face  and  form,  and  uniting  with  it  a  sympathetic  gift 
in  grasp  of  detail,  political  and  other,  she  soon  became 
her  father's  confidante  and  loyal  partizan,  taking  the 
place,  as  a  daughter  might,  of  the  ambitious  young  wife 
and  mother,  who  had  set  her  heart  on  seeing  the  Van 
Brock  name  on  the  roll  of  the  United  States  Senate. 

Eensselaer  Van  Brock  had  died  before  the  senatorial 
dream  could  be  realized,  but  not  before  he  had  made  a 
sufficient  number  of  lucky  investments  to  leave  his 
daughter  the  arbitress  of  her  own  future.  What  that 


80  THE    GEAFTEES 

future  should  be,  not  even  Loring  could  guess.  Since 
her  father's  death  Miss  Van  Brock  had  been  a  citizen 
of  the  world.  With  a  widowed  aunt  for  the  shadowiest 
of  chaperons,  she  had  drifted  with  the  tide  of  inclina- 
tion, coming  finally  to  rest  in  the  western  capital  for 
no  better  reason,  perhaps,  than  that  some  portion  of 
her  interest-bearing  securities  were  emblazoned  with  the 
great  seal  of  this  particular  western  State. 

Kent  was  thinking  of  Loring's  recountal  as  he  stood 
looking  down  on  her.  Other  women  were  younger — 
and  with  features  more  conventionally  beautiful;  Kent 
could  find  a  round  dozen  within  easy  eye-reach,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  calm-eyed,  queenly  improvisatrice  at  the 
piano — his  constant  standard  of  all  womanly  charm  and 
grace.  Unconsciously  he  fell  to  comparing  the  two,  his 
hostess  and  his  love,  and  was  brought  back  to  things 
present  by  a  sharp  reminder  from  Portia. 

"Stop  looking  at  Miss  Brentwood  that  way,  Mr.  Da- 
vid. She  is  not  for  you ;  and  you  are  keeping  me  wait- 
ing." 

He  smiled  down  on  her. 

"It  is  the  law  of  compensation.  I  fancy  you  have 
kept  many  a  man  waiting — and  will  keep  many  an- 
other." 

There  was  a  little  tang  of  bitterness  in  her  laugh. 

"You  remind  me  of  the  time  when  I  went  home  from 
school — oh,  years  and  years  ago.  Old  Chloe — she  was 


OF   THE   MAKING   OF   LAWS  81 

my  black  mammy,  you  know — had  a  grown  daughter  of 
her  own,  and  her  effort  to  dispose  of  her  'M'randy'  was  a 
standing  joke  in  the  family.  In  answer  to  my  stereo- 
typed question  she  stood  back  and  folded  her  arms. 
'Naw,  honey;  dat  M'randy  ain't  ma'ied  yit.  She  gwine 
be  des  lak  you;  look  pretty,  an'  say,  Howdy!  MisteJi 
Jawnson,  an'  go  'long  by  awn  turrer  side  de  road.' " 

"A  very  pretty  little  fable,"  said  Kent.  "And  the 
moral  ?" 

"Is  that  I  amuse  myself  with  you — all  of  you ;  and  in 
your  turn  you  make  use  of  me — or  you  think  you  do. 
Of  what  use  can  I  be  to  Mr.  David  Kent  this  evening  ?" 

"See  how  you  misjudge  me !"  he  protested.  "My  er- 
rand here  to-night  is  purely  charitable.  Which  brings 
me  back  to  Ormsby:  did  you  say  you  could  tell  me 
where  to  look  for  him?" 

"He  is  in  the  smoking-room  with  five  or  six  other 
tobacco  misanthropes.  What  do  you  want  of  him?" 

"I  want  to  say  two  words  in  his  ear;  after  which  I 
shall  vanish  and  make  room  for  my  betters." 

Miss  Van  Brock  was  gazing  steadfastly  at  the  impas- 
sioned face  lighted  by  the  piano  candles. 

"Is  it  about  Miss  Brentwood  ?"  she  asked  abruptly. 

"In  a  way — yes,"  he  confessed. 

She  rose  and  stood  beside  him — a  bewitching  figure  of 
a  woman  who  knew  her  part  in  the  human  comedy  and 
played  it  well. 


82  THE    GKAFTERS 

"Is  it  wise,  David  ?"  she  asked  softly.  "I  am  not  de- 
nying the  possibilities:  you  might  come  between  them 
if  you  should  try — I'm  rather  afraid  you  could.  But 
you  mustn't,  you  know ;  it's  too  late.  You've  marred  her, 
between  you;  or  rather  that  convention,  which  makes  a 
woman  deaf,  blind  and  dumb  until  a  man  has  fairly 
committed  himself,  has  marred  her.  For  your  sake  she 
can  never  be  quite  all  she  ought  to  be  to  him :  for  his 
sake  she  could  never  be  quite  the  same  to  you/' 

He  drew  apart  from  her,  frowning. 

"If  I  should  say  that  I  don't  fully  understand  what 
you  mean  ?"  he  rejoined. 

"I  should  retort  by  saying  something  extremely  un- 
complimentary about  your  lack  of  perspicacity,"  she 
cut  in  maliciously. 

"I  beg  pardon,"  he  said,  a  little  stiffly.  "You  are  la- 
boring under  an  entirely  wrong  impression.  What  I 
have  to  say  to  Mr.  Brookes  Ormsby  does  not  remotely 
concern  the  matter  you  touch  upon.  It's  an  affair  of 
the  Stock  Exchange." 

"As  if  I  didn't  know!"  she  countered.  "You  merely 
reminded  me  of  the  other  thing.  But  if  it  is  only  a 
business  secret  you  may  as  well  tell  me  all  about  it  at 
first  hands.  Some  one  is  sure  to  tell  me  sooner  or  later." 

Now  David  Kent  was  growing  impatient.  Down  in 
the  inner  depths  of  him  he  was  persuaded  that  Ormsby 


OF   THE   MAKING    OF   LAWS  83 

might  have  difficulty  in  inducing  Mrs.  Brentwood  to 
sell  her  Western  Pacific  stock  even  at  an  advance ;  might 
require  time,  at  least.  And  time,  with  a  Bucks  majority 
tinkering  with  corporate  rights  in  the  Assembly,  might 
well  be  precious. 

"Forgive  me  if  I  tell  Ormsby  first/'  he  pleaded.  "Af- 
terward, if  you  care  to  know,  you  shall." 

Miss  Van  Brock  let  him  go  at  that,  but  now  the  way 
to  the  smoking-den  on  the  floor  above  was  hedged  up. 
He  did  battle  with  the  polite  requirements,  as  a  man 
must;  shaking  hands  or  exchanging  a  word  with  one 
and  another  of  the  obstructors  only  as  he  had  to.  None 
the  less,  when  he  had  finally  wrought  his  way  to  the 
smoking-room  Ormsby  had  eluded  him  again. 

He  went  back  to  the  parlors,  wondering  how  he  had 
missed  the  club-man.  In  the  middle  room  of  the  suite 
he  found  Portia  chatting  with  Marston,  the  lieutenant- 
governor;  and  a  young  woman  in  the  smartest  of  re- 
ception gowns  had  succeeded  to  Elinor's  place  at  the 
piano. 

"You  found  him  ?"  queried  the  hostess,  excusing  her- 
self to  the  tall,  saturnine  man  who  had  shared  the  hon- 
ors at  the  head  of  the  People's  Party  ticket  with  Jasper 
G.  Bucks. 

"No,"  said  Kent.    "Have  you  seen  him?" 

"Why,  yes ;  they  all  came  to  take  leave  just  a  few  mo- 


84  THE   GRAFTERS 

ments  after  you  left  me.  I  thought  of  telling  Mr. 
Ormsby  you  were  looking  for  him,  but  you  shut  me  off 
so  snippily — " 

"Miss  Van  Brock !  What  have  you  done  ?  I  must  go 
at  once." 

"Really  ?  I  am  complimented.  But  if  you  must,  you 
must,  I  suppose.  I  had  something  to  tell  you — some- 
thing of  importance;  but  I  can't  remember  what  it  was 
now.  I  never  can  remember  things  in  the  hurry  of 
leave-takings." 

As  we  have  intimated,  Kent  had  hitherto  found  Miss 
Portia's  confidences  exceedingly  helpful  in  a  business 
way,  and  he  hesitated.  "Tell  me,"  he  begged. 

"No,  I  can't  remember  it :  I  doubt  if  I  shall  ever  re- 
member it  unless  you  can  remind  me  by  telling  me  why 
you  are  so  desperately  anxious  to  find  Mr.  Ormsby." 

"I  wonder  if  you  hold  everybody  up  like  this,"  he 
laughed.  "But  I  don't  mind  telling  you.  Western  Pa- 
cific preferred  has  gone  to  fifty-eight  and  a  half." 

"And  Mr.  Ormsby  has  some  to  sell?  I  wish  I  had. 
Do  you  know  what  I'd  do  ?"  She  drew  closer  and  laid  a 
hand  on  his  arm.  "I'd  sell — by  wire — to-night;  at 
least,  I'd  make  sure  that  my  telegram  would  be  the  first 
thing  my  broker  would  lay  his  hands  on  in  the  morn- 
ing." 

"On  general  principles,  I  suppose:  so  should  I,  and 


OF  THE   MAKING   OF   LAWS  85 

for  the  same  reason.    But  have  I  succeeded  in  remind- 
ing you  of  that  thing  you  were  going  to  tell  me  ?" 

"Not  wholly;  only  partly.  You  said  this  matter  of 
Mr.  Ormsby's  concerned  Miss  Brentwood — in  a  way — 
didn't  you  ?" 

"You  will  have  your  pound  of  flesh  entire,  won't  you? 
The  stock  is  hers,  and  her  mother's  and  sister's.  I  want 
Ormsby  to  persuade  them  to  sell.  They'll  listen  to  him. 
That  is  all;  all  the  all." 

"Of  course !"  she  said  airily.  "How  simple  of  me  not 
to  have  been  able  to  add  it  up  without  your  help.  I 
saw  the  quotation  in  the  evening  paper;  and  I  know, 
better,  perhaps,  than  you  do,  the  need  for  haste.  Must 
you  go  now?"  She  had  taken  his  arm  and  was  edging 
him  through  the  press  in  the  parlors  toward  the  en- 
trance hall. 

"You  haven't  paid  me  yet,"  he  objected. 

"No;  I'm  trying  to  remember.  Oh,  yes;  I  have  it 
now.  Wasn't  some  one  telling  me  that  you  are  inter- 
ested in  House  Bill  Twenty-nine?" 

They  had  reached  the  dimly  lighted  front  vestibule, 
and  her  hand  was  still  on  his  arm. 

"I  was  interested  in  it,"  he  admitted,  correcting  the 
present  to  the  past  tense. 

"But  after  it  went  to  the  House  committee  on  judi- 
ciary you  left  it  to  more  skilful,  or  perhaps  we'd  better 
say,  to  less  scrupulous  hands  ?" 


86  THE    GEAFTEES 

"I  believe  you  are  a  witch.  Is  there  anything  you 
don't  know?" 

"Plenty  of  things.  For  example,  I  don't  know  ex- 
actly how  much  it  cost  our  good  friends  of  the  'vested 
interests'  to  have  that  bill  mislaid  in  the  committee 
room.  But  I  do  know  they  made  a  very  foolish  bar- 
gain." 

"Beyond  all  doubt  a  most  demoralizing  bargain, 
which,  to  say  the  best  of  it,  was  only  a  choice  between 
two  evils.  But  why  foolish  ?" 

"Because — well,  because  mislaid  things  have  a  way 
of  turning  up  unexpectedly,  you  know,  and — " 

He  stopped  her  in  a  sudden  gust  of  feverish  excite- 
ment. 

"Tell  me  what  you  mean  in  one  word,  Miss  Van 
Brock.  Don't  those  fellows  intend  to  stay  bought?" 

She  smiled  pityingly. 

"You  are  very  young,  Mr.  David — or  very  honest. 
Supposing  those  'fellows',  as  you  dub  the  honorable 
members  of  the  committee  on  judiciary,  had  a  little 
plan  of  their  own ;  a  plan  suggested  by  the  readiness  of 
certain  of  their  opponents  to  rush  into  print  with 
statements  which  might  derange  things?" 

"I  am  supposing  it  with  all  my  might." 

"That  is  right;  we  are  only  supposing,  you  must  re- 
member. We  may  suppose  their  idea  was  to  let  the  ex- 
citement about  the  amended  bill  die  down;  to  let  people 


OP  THE   MAKING   OF   LAWS  87 

generally,  and  one  fiercely  honest  young  corporation  at- 
torney in  particular,  have  time  to  forget  that  there  was 
such  a  thing  as  House  Bill  Twenty-nine.  And  in  such 
a  suppositional  case,  how  much  they  would  be  surprised, 
and  how  they  would  laugh  in  their  sleeves,  if  some  one 
came  along  and  paid  them  handsomely  for  doing  pre- 
cisely what  they  meant  to  do." 

David  Kent's  smile  was  almost  ferocious. 

"My  argument  is  as  good  now  as  it  was  in  the  begin- 
ning: they  have  yet  to  reckon  with  the  man  who  will 
dare  to  expose  them." 

She  turned  from  him  and  spoke  to  the  footman  at  the 
door. 

"Thomas,  fetch  Mr.  Kent's  coat  and  hat  from  the 
dressing-room."  And  then  to  Kent,  in  the  tone  she  might 
have  used  in  telling  him  of  the  latest  breeziness  of  the 
member  from  the  Eio  Blanco :  "I  remember  now  what 
it  was  that  I  wanted  to  tell  you.  While  you  have  been 
trying  to  find  Mr.  Ormsby,  the  committee  on  judiciary 
has  been  reporting  the  long-lost  House  Bill  Twenty- 
nine.  If  you  hurry  you  may  be  in  time  to  see  it  passed 
— it  will  doubtless  go  through  without  any  tiresome  de- 
bate. But  you  will  hardly  have  time  to  obstruct  it  by 
arousing  public  sentiment  through  the  newspapers." 

David  Kent  shook  the  light  touch  of  her  hand  from 
his  arm  and  set  his  teeth  hard  upon  a  word  hot  from 
the  furnace  of  righteous  indignation.  For  a  moment  he 


fully  believed  she  was  in  league  with  the  junto ;  that  she 
had  been  purposely  holding  him  in  talk  while  the  very 
seconds  were  priceless. 

She  saw  the  scornful  wrath  in  his  eyes  and  turned  it 
aside  with  a  swift  denial. 

"No,  David;  I  didn't  do  that,"  she  said,  speaking  to 
his  inmost  thought.  "If  there  had  been  anything  you 
could  do — the  smallest  shadow  of  a  chance  for  you — I 
should  have  sent  you  flying  at  the  first  word.  But  there 
wasn't;  it  was  all  too  well  arranged — " 

But  he  had  snatched  coat  and  hat  from  the  waiting 
Thomas  and  was  running  like  a  madman  for  the  near- 
est cab-stand. 


VII 

THE  SENTIMENTALISTS 

Kent's  time  from  Alameda  Square  to  the  capitol  was 
the  quickest  a  flagged  cab-horse  could  make,  but  he 
might  have  spared  the  horse  and  saved  the  double  fee. 
On  the  broad  steps  of  the  south  portico  he,  uprushing 
three  at  a  bound,  met  the  advance  guard  of  the  gallery 
contingent,  down-coming.  The  House  had  adjourned. 

"One  minute,  Harnwicke!"  he  gasped,  falling  upon 
the  first  member  of  the  corporations'  lobby  he  could 
identify  in  the  throng.  "What's  been  done  ?" 

"They've  taken  a  fall  out  of  us,"  was  the  brusk  re- 
ply. "House  Bill  Twenty-nine  was  reported  by  the 
committee  on  judiciary  and  rushed  through  after  you 
left.  Somebody  engineered  it  to  the  paring  of  a  finger- 
nail: bare  quorum  to  act;  members  who  might  have 
filibustered  weeded  out,  on  one  pretext  or  another,  to  a 
man ;  pages  all  excused,  and  nobody  here  with  the  priv- 
ilege of  the  floor.  It  was  as  neat  a  piece  of  gag-work 
as  I  ever  hope  to  see  if  I  live  to  be  a  hundred." 

(89) 


90  THE    GEAFTEES 

Kent  faced  about  and  joined  the  townward  dispersal 
with  his  informant. 

"Well,  I  suppose  that  settles  it  definitely;  at  least, 
until  we  can  test  its  constitutionality  in  the  courts,"  he 
said. 

Harnwicke  thought  not,  being  of  the  opinion  that  the 
vested  interests  would  never  say  die  until  they  were 
quite  dead.  As  assistant  counsel  for  the  Overland  Short 
Line,  he  was  in  some  sense  the  dean  of  the  corps  of  ob- 
servation, and  could  speak  with  authority. 

"There  is  one  chance  left  for  us  this  side  of  the 
courts,"  he  went  on;  "and  now  I  think  of  it,  you  are 
the  man  to  say  how  much  of  a  chance  it  is.  The  bill  still 
lacks  the  governor's  signature." 

Kent  shook  his  head. 

"It  is  his  own  measure.  I  have  proof  positive  that 
he  and  Meigs  and  Hendricks  drafted  it.  And  all  this 
fine-haired  engineering  to-night  was  his,  or  Meigs'." 

"Of  course;  we  all  know  that.  But  we  don't  know 
the  particular  object  yet.  Do  they  need  the  new  law  in 
their  business  as  a  source  of  revenue  ?  Or  do  they  want 
to  be  hired  to  kill  it  ?  In  other  words,  does  Bucks  want 
a  lump  sum  for  a  veto  ?  You  know  the  man  better  than 
any  of  us." 

"By  Jove!"  said  Kent.  "Do  you  mean  to  say  you 
would  buy  the  governor  of  a  state?" 

Harnwicke  turned  a  cold  eye  on  his  companion  as 


THE    SENTIMENTALISTS  91 

they  strode  along.  He  was  of  the  square-set,  plain- 
spoken,  aggressive  type — a  finished  product  of  the  mod- 
ern school  of  business  lawyers. 

"I  don't  understand  that  you  are  raising  the  question 
of  ethics  at  this  stage  of  the  game,  do  I  ?"  he  remarked. 

Kent  fired  up  a  little. 

"And  if  I  am?"  he  retorted. 

"I  should  say  you  had  missed  your  calling.  It  is 
baldly  a  question  of  business — or  rather  of  self-preserva- 
tion. We  needn't  mince  matters  among  ourselves.  If 
Bucks  is  for  sale,  we  buy  him." 

Kent  shrugged. 

"There  isn't  any  doubt  about  his  purchasability.  But 
I  confess  I  don't  quite  see  how  you  will  go  about  it." 

"Never  mind  that  part  of  it;  just  leave  the  ways  and 
means  with  those  of  us  who  have  riper  experience — and 
fewer  hamperings,  perhaps — than  you  have.  Your  share 
in  it  is  to  tell  us  how  big  a  bid  we  must  make.  As  I 
say,  you  know  the  man." 

David  Kent  was  silent  for  the  striding  of  half  a 
square.  The  New  England  conscience  dies  hard,  and 
while  it  lives  it  is  given  to  drawing  sharp  lines  on  all  the 
boundaries  of  culpability.  Kent  ended  by  taking  the 
matter  in  debate  violently  out  of  the  domain  of  ethics 
and  standing  it  upon  the  ground  of  expediency. 

"It  will  cost  too  much.  You  would  have  to  bid 
high — not  to  overcome  his  scruples,  for  he  has  none; 


92  THE    GRAFTERS 

but  to  satisfy  his  greed — which  is  abnormal.  And,  be- 
sides, he  has  his  pose  to  defend.  If  he  can  see  his  way 
clear  to  a  harvest  of  extortions  under  the  law,  he  will 
probably  turn  you  down — and  will  make  it  hot  for  you 
later  on  in  the  name  of  outraged  virtue." 

Harnwicke's  laugh  was  cynical. 

"He  and  his  little  clique  don't  own  the  earth  in  fee 
simple.  Perhaps  we  shall  be  able  to  make  them  grasp 
that  idea  before  we  are  through  with  them.  We  have 
had  this  fight  on  in  other  states.  Would  ten  thousand 
be  likely  to  satisfy  him  ?" 

"No/'  said  Kent.  "If  you  add  another  cipher,  it 
might." 

"A  hundred  thousand  is  a  pot  of  money.  I  take  it 
for  granted  the  Western  Pacific  will  stand  its  pro- 
rate?" 

The  New  England  conscience  bucked  again,  and  Kent 
made  his  first  open  protest  against  the  methods  of  the 
demoralizers. 

"I  am  not  in  a  position  to  say :  I  should  advise  against 
it.  Unofficially,  I  think  I  can  speak  for  Loring  and 
the  Boston  people.  We  are  not  more  saintly  than  other 
f oik,  perhaps ;  and  we  are  not  in  the  railroad  business 
for  health  or  pleasure.  But  I  fancy  the  Advisory  Board 
would  draw  the  line  at  bribing  a  governor — at  any 
rate,  I  hope  it  would." 

"Rot!"  said  Harnwicke.     And  then:     "You'll  reap 


THE    SENTIMENTALISTS  93 

the  benefits  with  other  interstate  interests ;  you'll  have 
to  come  in." 

Kent  hesitated,  but  not  now  on  the  ground  of  the 
principle  to  be  defended. 

"That  brings  in  a  question  which  I  am  not  competent 
to  decide.  Loring  is  your  man.  You  will  call  a  con- 
ference of  the  'powers/  I  take  it  ?" 

"It  is  already  called.  I  sent  Atherton  out  to  notify 
everybody  as  soon  as  the  trap  was  sprung  in  the  House. 
We  meet  in  the  ordinary  at  the  Camelot.  You'll  be 
there?" 

"A  little  later — if  Loring  wants  me.  I  have  some 
telephoning  to  do  before  this  thing  gets  on  the  wires." 

They  parted  at  the  entrance  to  the  Camelot  Club, 
and  Kent  went  two  squares  farther  on  to  the  Welling- 
ton. Ormsby  had  not  yet  returned,  and  Kent  went  to 
the  telephone  and  called  up  the  Brentwood  apartments. 
It  was  Penelope  that  answered. 

"Well,  I  think  you  owe  it,"  she  began,  as  soon  as  he 
had  given  his  name.  "What  did  I  do  at  Miss  Van 
Brock's  to  make  you  cut  me  dead  ?" 

"Why,  nothing  at  all,  I'm  sure.  I — I  was  looking 
for  Mr.  Ormsby,  and — " 

"Not  when  I  saw  you,"  she  broke  in  flippantly.  ffYou 
were  handing  Miss  Portia  an  ice.  Are  you  still  looking 
for  Mr.  Ormsby  ?" 

"I  am — just  that.    Is  he  with  you?" 


94  THE    GEAFTEES 

"No;  he  left  here  about  twenty  minutes  ago.  Is  it 
anything  serious  ?" 

"Serious  enough  to  make  me  want  to  find  him  as 
soon  as  I  can.  Did  he  say  he  was  coming  down  to  the 
Wellington?7' 

"Of  course,  he  didn 't,"  laughed  Penelope.  And  then : 
"Whatever  is  the  matter  with  you  this  evening,  Mr. 
Kent?" 

"I  guess  I'm  a  little  excited,"  said  Kent.  "Some- 
thing has  happened — something  I  can't  talk  about  over 
the  wires.  It  concerns  ymi  and  your  mother  and  sister. 
You'll  know  all  about  it  as  soon  as  I  can  find  Ormsby 
and  send  him  out  to  you." 

Penelope's  "Oh !"  was  long-drawn  and  gasping. 

"Is  any  one  dead?"  she  faltered. 

"No,  no ;  it's  nothing  of  that  kind.  I'll  send  Ormsby 
out,  and  he  will  tell  you  all  about  it." 

"Can't  you  come  yourself?" 

"I  may  have  to  if  I  can't  find  Ormsby.  Please  don't 
let  your  mother  go  to  bed  until  you  have  heard  from  one 
or  the  other  of  us.  Did  you  get  that  ?" 

"Ye-es ;  but  I  should  like  to  know  more — a  great  deal 
more." 

"I  know;  and  I'd  like  to  tell  you.  But  I  am  using 
the  public  telephone  here  at  the  Wellington,  and — Oh, 
damn!"  Central  had  cut  him  out,  and  it  was  some 
minutes  before  the  connection  was  switched  in  again. 


THE    SENTIMENTALISTS  95 

"Is  that  you,  Miss  Penelope  ?  All  right ;  I  wasn't  quite 
through.  When  Ormsby  comes,  you  must  do  as  he  tells 
you  to,  and  you  and  Miss  Elinor  must  help  him  convince 
your  mother.  Do  you  understand  ?" 

"No,  I  don't  understand  anything.  For  goodness' 
sake,  find  Mr.  Ormsby  and  make  him  run!  This  is 
perfectly  dreadful !" 

"Isn't  it?    And  I'm  awfully  sorry.    Good-by." 

Kent  hung  up  the  receiver,  and  when  he  was  asking  a 
second  time  at  the  clerk's  desk  for  the  missing  man, 
Ormsby  came  in  to  answer  for  himself.  Whereupon  the 
crisis  was  outlined  to  him  in  brief  phrase,  and  he  rose 
to  the  occasion,  though  not  without  a  grimace. 

"I'm  not  sure  just  how  well  you  know  Mrs.  Hepzibah 
Brentwood,"  he  demurred ;  "but  it  will  be  quite  like  her 
to  balk.  Don't  you  think  you'd  better  go  along?  You 
are  the  company's  attorney,  and  your  opinion  ought  to 
carry  some  weight." 

David  Kent  thought  not;  but  a  cautious  diplomatist, 
having  got  the  idea  well  into  the  back  part  of  his  head, 
was  not  to  be  denied. 

"Of  course,  you'll  come.  You  are  just  the  man  I'll 
need  to  back  me  up.  I  sha'n't  shirk;  I'll  take  the 
mother  into  the  library  and  break  the  ice,  while  you 
are  squaring  things  with  the  young  women.  Penelope 
won't  care  the  snap  of  her  finger  either  way ;  but  Elinor 
has  some  notions  that  you  are  fitter  to  cope  with  than 


96  THE    GRAFTERS 

I  am.  After,  if  you  can  give  me  a  lift  with  Mrs.  Hep- 
zibah,  I'll  call  you  in.  Come  on;  it's  getting  pretty 
late  to  go  visiting." 

Kent  yielded  reluctantly,  and  they  took  a  car  for  the 
sake  of  speed.  It  was  Penelope  who  opened  the  door 
for  them  at  124  Tejon  Avenue;  and  Ormsby  made  it 
easy  for  his  coadjutor,  as  he  had  promised. 

"I  want  to  see  your  mother  in  the  library  for  a  few 
minutes,"  he  began.  "Will  you  arrange  it,  and  take 
care  of  Mr.  Kent  until  I  come  for  him?" 

Penelope  "arranged"  it,  not  without  another  added 
pang  of  curiosity,  whereupon  David  Kent  found  him- 
self the  rather  embarrassed  third  of  a  silent  trio  gath- 
ered about  the  embers  of  the  sitting-room  fire. 

"Is  it  to  be  a  Quaker  meeting?"  asked  Penelope, 
sweetly,  when  the  silence  had  grown  awe-inspiring. 

Kent  laughed  for  pure  joy  at  the  breaking  of  the 
spell. 

"One  would  think  we  had  come  to  drag  you  all  off  to 
jail,  Ormsby  and  I,"  he  said;  and  then  he  went  on  to 
explain.  "It's  about  your  Western  Pacific  stock,  you 
know.  To-day's  quotations  put  it  a  point  and  a  half 
above  your  purchase  price,  and  we've  come  to  persuade 
you  to  unload,  pronto,  as  the  member  from  the  Rio 
Blanco  would  say." 

"Is  that  all  ?"  said  Penelope,  stifling  a  yawn.    'Then 


THE    SENTIMENTALISTS  97 

I'm  not  in  it :  I'm  an  infant."  And  she  rose  and  went  to 
the  piano. 

"You  haven't  told  us  all  of  it :  what  has  happened  ?" 
queried  Elinor,  speaking  for  the  first,  time  since  her 
greeting  of  Kent. 

He  briefed  the  story  of  House  Bill  Twenty-nine  for 
her,  pointing  out  the  probabilities. 

"Of  course,  no  one  can  tell  what  the  precise  effect 
will  be,"  he  qualified.  "But  in  my  opinion  it  is  very 
likely  to  be  destructive  of  dividends.  Skipping  the  dry 
details,  the  new  law,  which  is  equitable  enough  on  its 
face,  can  be  made  an  engine  of  extortion  in  the  hands 
of  those  who  administer  it.  In  fact,  I  happen  to  know 
that  it  was  designed  and  carried  through  for  that  very 
purpose." 

She  smiled. 

"I  have  understood  you  were  in  the  opposition.  Are 
you  speaking  politically?" 

"I  am  stating  the  plain  fact,"  said  Kent,  nettled  a 
little  by  her  coolness.  "Decadent  Eome  never  lifted  a 
baser  set  of  demagogues  into  office  than  we  have  here 
in  this  State  at  the  present  moment." 

He  spoke  warmly,  and  she  liked  him  best  when  he 
put  her  on  the  footing  of  an  equal  antagonist. 

"I  can't  agree  with  your  inference,"  she  objected. 
"As  a  people  we  are  neither  ebsequious  nor  stupid." 


98  THE    GEAFTERS 

"Perhaps  not.  But  it  is  one  of  the  failures  of  a  popu- 
lar government  that  an  honest  majority  may  be  con- 
trolled and  directed  by  a  small  minority  of  shrewd 
rascals.  That  is  exactly  what  has  happened  in  the  pas- 
sage of  this  bill.  I  venture  to  say  that  not  one  man  in 
ten  who  voted  for  it  had  the  faintest  suspicion  that  it 
was  a  'graft'." 

"If  that  be  true,  what  chances  there  are  for  men 
with  the  gift  of  true  leadership  and  a  love  of  pure  jus- 
tice in  their  hearts!"  she  said  half-absently ;  and  he 
started  forward  and  said :  "I  beg  pardon  ?" 

She  let  the  blue-gray  eyes  meet  his  and  there  was  a 
passing  shadow  of  disappointment  in  them. 

"I  ought  to  beg  yours.  I'm  afraid  I  was  thinking 
aloud.  But  it  is  one  of  my  dreams.  If  I  were  a  man 
I  should  go  into  politics." 

"To  purify  them?" 

"To  do  my  part  in  trying.  The  great  heart  of  the 
people  is  honest  and  well-meaning:  I  think  we  all  ad- 
mit that.  And  there  is  intelligence,  too.  But  human 
nature  is  the  same  as  it  used  to  be  when  they  set  up  a 
man  who  could  and  called  him  a  king.  Gentle  or  sim- 
ple, it  must  be  led." 

.  "There  is  no  lack  of  leadership,  such  as  it  is,"  he 
hazarded. 

"No;  but  there  seems  to  be  a  pitiful  lack  of  the 
right  kind:  men  who  will  put  self-seeking  and  un- 


THE    SENTIMENTALISTS  99 

worthy  ambition  aside  and  lift  the  standard  of  justice 
and  right-doing  for  its  own  sake.  Are  there  any  such 
men  nowadays?" 

"I  don't  know,"  he  rejoined  gravely.  "Sometimes 
I'm  tempted  to  doubt  it.  It  is  a  frantic  scramble  for 
place  and  power  for  the  most  part.  The  kind  of  man 
you  have  in  mind  isn't  in  it;  shuns  it  as  he  would  a 
plague  spot." 

She  contradicted  him  firmly. 

"No,  the  kind  of  man  I  have  in  mind  wouldn't  shun 
it;  he  would  take  hold  with  his  hands  and  try  to  make 
things  better;  he  would  put  the  selfish  temptations 
under  foot  and  give  the  people  a  leader  worth  follow- 
ing— be  the  real  mind  and  hand  of  the  well-meaning 
majority." 

Kent  shook  his  head  slowly. 

"Not  unless  we  admit  a  motive  stronger  than  the  ab- 
straction which  we  call  patriotism." 

"I  don't  understand,"  she  said ;  meaning,  rather,  that 
she  refused  to  understand. 

"I  mean  that  such  a  man,  however  exalted  his  views 
might  be,  would  have  to  have  an  object  more  personal 
to  him  than  the  mere  dutiful  promptings  of  patriotism 
to  make  him  do  his  best." 

"But  that  would  be  self-seeking  again."  ' 

"Not  necessarily  in  the  narrow  sense.  The  old 
knightly  chivalry  was  a  beautiful  thing  in  its  way,  and 


100  THE   GRAFTEES 

it  gave  an  uplift  to  an  age  which  would  have  been 
frankly  brutal  without  it:  yet  it  had  its  well-spring  in 
what  appeals  to  us  now  as  being  a  rather  fantastic  senti- 
ment." 

"And  we  are  not  sentimentalists?"  she  suggested. 

"No ;  and  it's  the  worse  for  us  in  some  respects.  You 
will  not  find  your  ideal  p'olitician  until  you  find  a  man 
with  somewhat  of  the  old  knightly  spirit  in  him.  And 
I'll  go  further  and  say  that  when  you  do  find  him  ha 
will  be  at  heart  the  champion  of  the  woman  he  loves 
rather  than  that  of  a  political  constituency." 

She  became  silent  at  that,  and  for  a  time  the  low  sweet 
harmonies  of  the  nocturne  Penelope  was  playing  filled 
the  gap. 

Kent  left  his  chair  and  began  to  wish  honestly  for 
Ormsby's  return.  He  was  searing  the  wound  again,  and 
the  process  was  more  than  commonly  painful.  They 
had  been  speaking  in  figures,  as  a  man  and  a  woman 
will ;  yet  he  made  sure  the  mask  of  metaphor  was  trans- 
parent, no  less  to  her  than  to  him.  As  many  times  be- 
fore, his  heart  was  crying  out  to  her;  but  now  behind 
the  cry  there  was  an  upsurging  tidal  wave  of  emotion 
new  and  strange;  a  toppling  down  of  barriers  and  a 
sweeping  inrush  of  passionate  rebellion. 

Why  had  she  put  it  out  of  her  power  to  make  him  her 
champion  in  the  Field  of  the  Lust  of  Mastery?  In- 
stantly, and  like  a  revealing  lightning  flash,  it  dawned 


THE    SENTIMENTALISTS  101 

upon  him  that  this  was  his  awakening.  Something  of 
himself  she  had  shown  him  in  the  former  time :  how  he 
was  rusting  inactive  in  the  small  field  when  he  should 
be  doing  a  man's  work,  the  work  for  which  his  train- 
ing had  fitted  him,  in  the  larger.  But  the  glamour  of 
sentiment  had  been  over  it  all  in  those  days,  and  to  the 
passion-warped  the  high  call  is  transmitted  in  terms  of 
self-seeking. 

He  turned  upon  her  suddenly. 

"Did.  you  mean  to  reproach  me  ?"  he  asked  abruptly. 

"How  absurd!" 

"No,  it  isn't.  You  are  responsible  for  me,  in  a  cer- 
tain sense.  You  sent  me  out  into  the  world,  and  some- 
how I  feel  as  if  I  had  disappointed  you." 

"'But  what  went  ye  out  for  to  see?'"  she  quoted 
softly. 

"I  know,"  he  nodded,  sitting  down  again.  "You 
thought  you  were  arousing  a  worthy  ambition,  but  it 
was  only  avarice  that  was  quickened.  I've  been  trying 
to  be  a  money-getter." 

"You  can  be  something  vastly  better." 

"No,  I  am  afraid  not ;  it  is  too  late." 

Again  the  piano-mellowed  silence  supervened,  and 
Kent  put  his  elbows  on  his  knees  and  his  face  in  his 
hands,  being  very  miserable.  He  believed  now  what 
he  had  been  slow  to  credit  before:  that  he  had  it  in 
him  to  hew  his  way  to  the  end  of  the  line  if  only 


102  THE   GRAFTERS 

the  motive  were  strong  enough  to  call  out  all  the  re- 
serves of  battle-might  and  courage.  That  motive  she 
alone,  of  all  the  women  in  the  world,  might  have  sup- 
plied, he  told  himself  in  keen  self-pity.  With  her  love 
to  arm  him,  her  clear-eyed  faith  to  inspire  him.  .  .  . 
He  sat  up  straight  and  pushed  the  cup  of  bitter  herbs 
aside.  There  would  be  time  enough  to  drain  it  farther 
on. 

"Coming  back  to  the  stock  market  and  the  present 
crisis,"  he  said,  breaking  the  silence  in  sheer  self-de- 
fense ;  "Ormsby  and  I — " 

She  put  the  resurrected  topic  back  into  its  grave 
with  a  little  gesture  of  apathetic  impatience  she  used 
now  and  then  with  Ormsby. 

"I  suppose  I  ought  to  be  interested,  but  I  am  not," 
she  confessed.  "Mother  will  do  as  she  thinks  best,  and 
we  shall  calmly  acquiesce,  as  we  always  do." 

David  Kent  was  not  sorry  to  be  relieved  in  so  many 
words  of  the  persuasive  responsibility,  and  the  talk 
drifted  into  reminiscence,  with  the  Croydon  summer 
for  a  background. 

It  was  a  dangerous  pastime  for  Kent;  perilous,  and 
subversive  of  many  things.  One  of  his  meliorating 
comforts  had  been  the  thought  that  however  bitter  his 
own  disappointment  was,  Elinor  at  least  was  happy. 
But  in  this  new-old  field  of  talk  a  change  came  over 
her  and  he  was  no  longer  sure  she  was  entirely  happy. 


THE    SENTIMENTALISTS  103 

She  was  saying  things  with  a  flavor  akin  to  cynicism 
in  them,  as  thus : 

"Do  you  remember  how  we  used  to  go  into  raptures 
of  pious  indignation  over  the  make-believe  sentiment 
of  the  summer  man  and  the  summer  girl?  I  recollect 
your  saying  once  that  it  was  wicked;  a  desecration  of 
things  which  ought  to  be  held  sacred.  It  isn't  so  very 
long  ago,  but  I  think  we  were  both  very  young  that 
summer — years  younger  than  we  can  ever  be  again. 
Don't  you?" 

"Doubtless,"  said  David  Kent.  He  was  at  a  pass  in 
which  he  would  have  agreed  with  her  if  she  had  asserted 
that  black  was  white.  It  was  not  weakness;  it  was 
merely  that  he  was  absorbed  in  a  groping  search  for 
the  word  which  would  fit  her  changed  mood. 

"We  have  learned  to  be  more  charitable  since/'  she 
went  on;  "more  charitable  and  less  sentimental,  per- 
haps. And  yet  we  prided  ourselves  on  our  sincerity 
in  that  young  time,  don't  you  think?" 

"I,  at  least,  was  sincere,"  he  rejoined  bluntly.  He 
had  found  the  mood-word  at  last:  it  was  resentment; 
though,  being  a  man,  he  could  see  no  good  reason  why 
the  memories  of  the  Croydon  summer  should  make  her 
resentful. 

She  was  not  looking  at  him  when  she  said:  "No; 
sincerity  is  always  just.  And  you  were  not  quite  just, 
I  think." 


104  THE   GBAFTEES 

"To  you?"  he  demanded. 

"Oh,  no ;  to  yourself/' 

Portia  Van  Brock's  accusation  was  hammering  itself 
into  his  brain.  You  have  marred  her  between  you. 
.  .  .  For  your  sake  she  can  never  be  quite  all  she 
ought  to  be  to  him;  for  his  sake  she  could  never  be 
quite  the  same  to  you.  A  cold  wave  of  apprehension 
submerged  him.  In  seeking  to  do  the  most  unselfish 
thing  that  offered,  had  he  succeeded  only  in  making 
her  despise  him? 

The  question  was  still  hanging  answerless  when  there 
came  the  sound  of  a  door  opening  and  closing,  and 
Ormsby  stood  looking  in  upon  them. 

"We  needn't  keep  these  sleepy  young  persons  out  of 
bed  any  longer,"  he  announced  briefly;  and  the  co- 
adjutor said  good-night  and  joined  him  at  once. 

"What  luck?"  was  David  Kent's  anxious  query  when 
they  were  free  of  the  house  and  had  turned  their  faces 
townward. 

"Just  as  much  as  we  might  have  expected.  Mrs. 
Hepzibah  refuses  point-blank  to  sell  her  stock — won't 
talk  about  it.  'The  idea  of  parting  with  it  now,  when 
it  is  actually  worth  more  than  it  was  when  we  bought 
it!'"  he  quoted,  mimicking  the  thin-lipped,  acidulous 
protest.  "Later,  in  an  evil  minute,  I  tried  to  drag  you 
in,  and  she  let  you  have  it  square  on  the  point  of  the 


THE    SENTIMENTALISTS  105 

jaw — intimated  that  it  was  a  deal  in  which  some  of  you 
inside  people  needed  her  block  of  stock  to  make  you 
whole.  She  did,  by  Jove  I" 

Kent's  laugh  was  mirthless. 

"I  was  never  down  in  her  good  books,"  he  said,  by 
way  of  accounting  for  the  accusation. 

If  Ormsby  thought  he  knew  the  reason  why,  he  was 
magnanimous  enough  to  steer  clear  of  that  shoal. 

"It's  a  mess,"  he  growled.  "I  don't  fancy  you  had 
any  better  luck  with  Elinor." 

"She  seemed  not  to  care  much  about  it  either  way. 
She  said  her  mother  would  have  the  casting  vote." 

"I  know.  What  I  don't  know  is,  what  remains  to  be 
done." 

"More  waiting,"  said  Kent,  definitively.  "The  fight 
is  fairly  on  now — as  between  the  Bucks  crowd  and  the 
corporations,  I  mean — but  there  will  probably  be  ups 
and  downs  enough  to  scare  Mrs.  Brentwood  into  letting 
go.  We  must  be  ready  to  strike  when  the  iron  is  hot; 
that's  all." 

The  New  Yorker  tramped  a  full  square  in  thought- 
ful silence  before  he  said :  "Candidly,  Kent,  Mrs.  Hep- 
zibah's  little  stake  in  Western  Pacific  isn't  altogether 
a  matter  of  life  and  death  to  me,  don't  you  know?  If 
it  comes  to  the  worst,  I  can  have  my  broker  play  the 
part  of  the  god  in  the  car.  Happily,  or  unhappily, 


106  THE    GRAFTERS 

whichever  way  you  like  to  put  it,  I  sha'n't  miss  what 
he  may  have  to  put  up  to  make  good  on  her  three  thou- 
sand shares." 

David  Kent  stopped  short  and  wheeled  suddenly  upon 
his  companion. 

"Ormsby,  that's  a  thing  I've  been  afraid  of,  all  along ; 
and  it's  the  one  thing  you  must  never  do." 

"Why  not?"  demanded  the  straightforward  Ormsby. 

Kent  knew  he  was  skating  on  the  thinnest  of  ice, 
but  his  love  for  Elinor  made  him  fearless  of  conse- 
quences. 

"If  you  don't  know  without  being  told,  it  proves  that 
your  money  has  spoiled  you  to  that  extent.  It  is  be- 
cause you  have  no  right  to  entrap  Miss  Brentwood  into 
an  obligation  that  would  make  her  your  debtor  for  the 
very  food  she  eats  and  the  clothes  she  wears.  You  will 
say  she  need  never  know:  be  very  sure  she  would  find 
out,  one  way  or  another;  and  she  would  never  forgive 
you." 

"Urn,"  said  Ormsby,  turning  visibly  grim.  "You. 
are  frank  enough — to  draw  it  mildly.  Another  man  in 
my  place  might  suggest  that  it  isn't  Mr.  David  Kent's 
affair." 

Kent  turned  about  and  caught  step  again. 

"I've  said  my  say — all  of  it,"  he  rejoined  stolidly. 
"We've  been  decently  modern  up  to  now,  and  we  won't 
go  back  to  the  elemental  things  so  late  in  the  day.  All 


THE    SENTIMENTALISTS  107 

the  same,  you'll  not  take  it  amiss  if  I  say  that  I  know 
Miss  Brentwood  rather  better  than  you  do." 

Ormsby  did  not  say  whether  he  would  or  would  not, 
and  the  talk  went  aside  to  less  summary  ways  and 
means  preservative  of  the  Brentwood  fortunes.  But  at 
the  archway  of  the  Camelot  Club,  where  Kent  paused, 
Ormsby  went  back  to  the  debatable  ground  in  an  out- 
spoken word. 

"I  know  pretty  well  now  what  there  is  between  us, 
Kent,  and  we  mustn't  quarrel  if  we  can  help  it,"  he 
said.  "If  you  complain  that  I  didn't  give  you  a  fair 
show,  I'll  retort  that  I  didn't  dare  to.  Are  you  satis- 
fied?" 

"No,"  said  David  Kent;  and  with  that  they  separated. 


VIII 

THE  HAYMAKERS 

By  the  terms  of  its  dating  clause  the  new  trust  and 
corporation  law  became  effective  at  once,  "the  public 
welfare  requiring  it";  and  though  there  was  an  im- 
mediate sympathetic  decline  in  the  securities  involved, 
there  was  no  panic,  financial  or  industrial,  to  mark  the 
change  from  the  old  to  the  new. 

Contrary  to  the  expectations  of  the  alarmists  and  the 
lawyers,  and  somewhat  to  the  disappointment  of  the 
latter,  the  vested  interests  showed  no  disposition  to 
test  the  constitutionality  of  the  act  in  the  courts.  So 
far,  indeed,  from  making  difficulties,  the  various  alien 
corporations  affected  by  the  new  law  wheeled  promptly 
into  line  in  compliance  with  its  provisions,  vying  with 
one  another  in  proving,  or  seeming  to  prove,  the  time- 
worn  aphorism  that  capital  can  never  afford  to  be  other- 
wise than  strictly  law-abiding. 

In  the  reorganization  of  the  Western  Pacific,  David 
Kent  developed  at  once  and  heartily  into  that  rare  and 
(108) 


THE    HAYMAKERS  109 

much-sought-for  quantity,  a  man  for  an  emergency. 
Loring,  also,  was  a  busy  man  in  this  transition  period, 
yet  he  found  time  to  keep  an  appreciative  eye  on  Kent, 
and,  true  to  his  implied  promise,  pushed  him  vigorously 
for  the  first  place  in  the  legal  department  of  the  lo- 
calized company.  Since  the  resident  manager  stood 
high  in  the  Boston  counsels  of  the  company,  the  push- 
ing was  not  without  results ;  and  while  David  Kent  was 
still  up  to  his  eyes  in  the  work  of  flogging  the  affairs 
of  the  newly  named  Trans- Western  into  conformity 
with  the  law,  his  appointment  as  general  counsel  came 
from  the  Advisory  Board. 

At  one  time,  when  success  in  his  chosen  vocation 
meant  more  to  him  than  he  thought  it  could  ever  mean 
again,  the  promoted  subordinate  would  have  had  an  at- 
tack of  jubilance  little  in  keeping  with  the  grave  re- 
sponsibilities of  his  office.  As  it  fell  out,'  he  was  too  busy 
to  celebrate,  and  too  sore  on  the  sentimental  side  to  re- 
joice. Hence,  his  recognition  of  the  promotion  was 
merely  a  deeper  plunge  into  the  flood  of  legalities  and 
the  adding  of  two  more  stenographers  to  his  office  force. 

Now  there  is  this  to  be  said  of  such  submersive  bat- 
tlings  in  a  sea  of  work :  while  the  fierce  toil  of  the  buf- 
feting may  be  good  for  the  swimmer's  soul,  it  neces- 
sarily narrows  his  horizon,  inasmuch  as  a  man  with  his 
head  in  the  sea-smother  lacks  the  view-point  of  the  cap- 
tain who  fights  his  ship  from  the  conning  tower. 


110  THE   GRAFTERS 

So  it  befell  that  while  the  newly  appointed  general 
counsel  of  the  reorganized  Western  Pacific  was  bolting 
his  meals  and  clipping  the  nights  at  both  ends  in  a  stren- 
uous endeavor  to  clear  the  decks  for  a  possible  battle- 
royal  at  the  capital,  events  of  a  minatory  nature  were 
shaping  themselves  elsewhere. 

To  bring  these  events  down  to  their  focusing  point 
in  the  period  of  transition,  it  is  needful  to  go  back  a 
little;  to  a  term  of  the  circuit  court  held  in  the  third 
year  of  Gaston  the  prosperous. 

Who  Mrs.  Melissa  Varnum  was;  how  she  came  to  be 
traveling  from  Midland  City  to  the  end  of  the  track  on  a 
scalper's  ticket;  and  in  what  manner  she  was  given 
her  choice  of  paying  fare  to  the  conductor  or  leaving 
the  train  at  Gaston — these  are  details  with  which  we 
need  not  concern  ourselves.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  Kent, 
then  local  attorney  for  the  company,  mastered  them; 
and  when  Mrs.  Varnum,  through  Hawk,  her  counsel, 
sued  for  five  thousand  dollars  damages,  he  was  able  to 
get  a  continuance,  knowing  from  long  experience  that 
the  jury  would  certainly  find  for  the  plaintiff  if  the  case 
were  then  allowed  to  go  to  trial. 

And  at  the  succeeding  term  of  court,  which  was  the 
one  that  adjourned  on  the  day  of  Kent's  transfer  to 
the  capital,  two  of  the  company's  witnesses  had  dis- 
appeared; and  the  one  bit  of  company  business  Kent 
had  been  successful  in  doing  that  day  was  to  postpone 


THE   HAYMAKERS  111 

for  a  second  time  the  coining  to  trial  of  the  Varnum 
case. 

It  was  while  Kent's  head  was  deepest  in  the  flood 
of  reorganization  that  a  letter  came  from  one  Blashfield 
Hunnicott,  his  successor  in  the  local  attorneyship  at 
Gaston,  asking  for  instructions  in  the  Varnum  matter. 
Judge  MacFarlane's  court  would  convene  in  a  week. 
.Was  he,  Hunnicott,  to  let  the  case  come  to  trial?  Or 
should  he — the  witnesses  still  being  unproducible— move 
for  a  further  continuance  ? 

Kent  took  his  head  out  of  the  cross-seas  long  enough 
to  answer.  By  all  means  Hunnicott  was  to  obtain  an- 
other continuance,  if  possible.  And  if,  before  the  case 
were  called,  there  should  be  any  new  developments,  he 
was  to  wire  at  once  to  the  general  office,  and  further 
instructions  would  issue. 

It  was  about  this  time,  or,  to  be  strictly  accurate, 
on  the  day  preceding  the  convening  of  Judge  MacFar- 
lane's court  in  Gaston,  that-  Governor  Bucks  took  a 
short  vacation — his  first  since  the  adjournment  of  the 
Assembly. 

One  of  the  mysteries  of  this  man — the  only  one  for 
which  his  friends  could  not  always  account  plausibly — 
was  his  habit  of  dropping  out  for  a  day  or  a  week  at 
irregular  intervals,  leaving  no  clue  by  which  he  could 
be  traced.  While  he  was  merely  a  private  citizen  these 


112  THE    GKAFTERS 

disappearances  figured  in  the  local  notes  of  the  Gaston 
Clarion  as  "business  trips,"  object  and  objective  point 
unknown  or  at  least  unstated;  but  since  his  election 
the  newspapers  were  usually  more  definite.  On  this 
occasion,  the  public  was  duly  informed  that  "Governor 
Bucks,  with  one  or  two  intimate  friends,  was  taking  a 
few  days'  recreation  with  rod  and  gun  on  the  headwaters 
of  Jump  Creek" — a  statement  which  the  governor's 
private  secretary  stood  ready  to  corroborate  to  all  and 
sundry  calling  at  the  gubernatorial  rooms  on  the  second 
floor  of  the  capitol. 

Now  it  chanced  that,  like  all  gossip,  this  statement 
was  subject  to  correction  as  to  details  in  favor  of  the  ex- 
act fact.  It  is  true  that  the  governor,  his  gigantic  figure 
clad  in  sportsmanlike  brown  duck,  might  have  been 
seen  boarding  the  train  on  the  Monday  evening ;  and  in 
addition  to  the  ample  hand-bag  there  were  rod  and 
gun  cases  to  bear  out  the  newspaper  notices.  None  the 
less,  it  was  equally  true  that  the  keeper  of  the  Gun 
Club  shooting-box  at  the  terminus  of  the  Trans-West- 
ern's Jump  Creek  branch  was  not  called  upon  to  enter- 
tain so  distinguished  a  guest  as  the  State  executive. 
Also,  it  might  have  been  remarked  that  the  governor 
traveled  alone. 

Late  that  same  night,  Stephen  Hawk  was  keeping  a 
rather  discomforting  vigil  with  a  visitor  in  the  best 
suite  of  rooms  the  Mid-Continent  Hotel  in  Gaston  af- 


THE   HAYMAKERS  113 

forded.  The  guest  of  honor  was  a  brother  lawyer — 
though  he  might  have  refused  to  acknowledge  the  re- 
lationship with  the  ex-district  attorney — a  keen-eyed, 
business-like  gentleman,  whose  name  as  an  organizer  of 
vast  capitalistic  ventures  had  traveled  far,  and  whose 
present  attitude  was  one  of  undisguised  and  angry  con- 
tempt for  Gaston  and  all  things  Gastonian. 

"How  much  longer  have  we  to  wait?"  he  demanded 
impatiently,  when  the  hands  of  his  watch  pointed  to  the 
quarter-hour  after  ten.  "You've  made  me  travel  two 
thousand  miles  to  see  this  thing  through:  why  didn't 
you  make  sure  of  having  your  man  here  ?" 

Hawk  wriggled  uneasily  in  his  chair.  He  was  used 
to  being  bullied,  not  only  by  the  good  and  great,  but  by 
the  little  and  evil  as  well.  Yet  there  was  a  rasp  to  the 
great  man's  impatience  that  irritated  him. 

"I've  been  trying  to  tell  you  all  the  evening  that  I'm 
only  the  hired  man  in  this  business,  Mr.  Falkland.  I 
can't  compel  the  attendance  of  the  other  parties." 

"Well,  it's  damned  badly  managed,  as  far  as  we've 
gone,"  was  the  ungracious  comment.  "You  say  the 
judge  refuses  to  confer  with  me  ?" 

"Ab-so-lutely." 

"And  the  train — the  last  train  the  other  man  can 
come  on;  is  that  in  yet?" 

Hawk  consulted  his  watch. 

"A  good  half-hour  ago." 


114  THE    GEAFTEKS 


had  your  clerk  at  the  station  to  meet  it  ?" 

"I  did." 

"And  he  hasn't  reported?" 

"Not  yet." 

Falkland  took  a  cigar  from  his  case,  bit  the  end  of  it 
like  a  man  with  a  grudge  to  satisfy,  and  began  again. 

"There  is  a  very  unbusinesslike  mystery  about  all 
this,  Mr.  Hawk,  and  I  may  as  well  tell  you  shortly  that 
my  time  is  too  valuable  to  make  me  tolerant  of  half- 
confidences.  Get  to  the  bottom  of  it.  Has  your  man 
weakened  ?" 

"No  ;  he  is  not  of  the  weakening  kind.  And,  besides, 
the  scheme  is  his  own  from  start  to  finish,  as  you  know." 

"Well,  what  is  the  matter,  then?" 

Hawk  rose. 

"If  you  will  be  patient  a  little  while  longer,  I'll  go 
to  the  wire  and  try  to  find  out.  I  am  as  much  in  the 
dark  as  you  are." 

This  last  was  not  strictly  true.  Hawk  had  a  tele- 
gram in  his  pocket  which  was  causing  him  more  un- 
easiness than  all  the  rasping  criticisms  of  the  New  York 
attorney,  and  he  was  re-reading  it  by  the  light  of  the 
corridor  bracket  when  a  young  man  sprang  from  the 
ascending  elevator  and  hurried  to  the  door  of  the  parlor 
suite.  Hawk  collared  his  Mercury  before  he  could  rap 
on  the  door. 

"Well?"  he  queried  sharply. 


THE   HAYMAKEES  115 

"It's  just  as  you  suspected — what  Mr.  Hendricks' 
telegram  hinted  at.  I  met  him  at  the  station  and 
couldn't  do  a  thing  with  him." 

"Where  has  he  gone  ?" 

"To  the  same  old  place." 

"You  followed  him?" 

"Sure.  That  is  what  kept  me  so  long." 

Hawk  hung  upon  his  decision  for  the  barest  fraction 
of  a  second.  Then  he  gave  his  orders  concisely. 

"Hunt  up  Doctor  Macquoid  and  get  him  out  to  the 
club-house  as  quick  as  you  can.  Tell  him  to  bring  his 
hypodermic.  I'll  be  there  with  all  the  help  he'll  need." 
And  when  the  young  man  was  gone,  Hawk  smote  the 
air  with  a  clenched  fist  and  called  down  the  Black 
Curse  of  Shielygh,  or  its  modern  equivalent,  on  all  the 
fates  subversive  of  well-laid  plans. 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  later,  on  the  upper  floor  of  the 
club-house  at  the  Gentlemen's  Driving  Park,  four  men 
burst  in  upon  a  fifth,  a  huge  figure  in  brown  duck, 
crouching  in  a  corner  like  a  wild  beast  at  bay.  A  bottle 
and  a  tumbler  stood  on  the  table  under  the  hanging 
lamp;  and  with  the  crash  of  breaking  glass  which  fol- 
lowed the  mad-bull  rush  of  the  duck-clothed  giant,  the 
reek  of  French  brandy  filled  the  room. 

"Hold  him  still,  if  you  can,  and  pull  up  that  sleeve." 
It  was  Macquoid  who  spoke,  and  the  three  apparitors, 
breathing  hard,  sat  upon  the  prostrate  man  and  bared 


116  THE    GEAFTEES 

his  arm  for  the  physician.  When  the  apomorphia  be- 
gan to  do  its  work  there  was  a  struggle  of  another  sort, 
out  of  which  emerged  a  pallid  and  somewhat  stricken 
reincarnation  of  the  governor. 

"Falkland  is  waiting  at  the  hotel,  and  he  and  Mac- 
Farlane  can't  get  together,"  said  Hawk,  tersely,  when 
the  patient  was  fit  to  listen.  "Otherwise  we  shouldn't 
have  disturbed  you.  It's  all  day  with  the  scheme  if  you 
can't  show  up." 

The  governor  groaned  and  passed  his  hand  over  his 
eyes. 

"Get  me  into  my  clothes — Johnson  has  the  grip — 
and  give  ine  all  the  time  you  can,"  was  the  sullen  re- 
joinder; and  in  due  course  the  Honorable  Jasper  G. 
Bucks,  clothed  upon  and  in  his  right  mind,  was  en- 
abled to  keep  his  appointment  with  the  New  York  at- 
torney at  the  Mid-Continent  Hotel. 

But  first  came  the  whipping-in  of  MacFarlane.  Bucks 
went  alone  to  the  judge's  room  on  the  floor  above  the 
parlor  suite.  It  was  now  near  midnight,  but  MacFar- 
lane had  not  gone  to  bed.  He  was  a  spare  man,  with 
thin  hair  graying  rapidly  at  the  temples  and  a  care-worn 
face;  the  face  of  a  man  whose  tasks  or  responsibilities, 
or  both,  have  overmatched  him.  He  was  walking  the 
floor  with  his  head  down  and  his  hands — thin,  nerve- 
less hands  they  were — tightly  locked  behind  him,  when 
the  governor  entered. 


THE   HAYMAKEES  117 

For  a  large  man  the  Honorable  Jasper  was  usually 
able  to  handle  his  weight  admirably;  but  now  he  clung 
to  the  door-knob  until  he  could  launch  himself  at  a 
chair  and  be  sure  of  hitting  it. 

"What's  this  Hawk's  telling  me  about  you,  MacFar- 
lane  ?"  he  demanded,  frowning  portentously. 

"I  don't  know  what  he  has  told  you.  But  it  is  too 
flagrant,  Bucks;  I  can't  do  it,  and  that's  all  there  is 
about  it."  The  protest  was  feebly  fierce,  and  there  was 
the  snarl  of  a  baited  animal  in  the  tone. 

"It's  too  late  to  make  difficulties  now/'  was  the  harsh 
reply.  "You've  got  to  do  it." 

"I  tell  you  I  can  not,  and  I  will  not !" 

"A  late  attack  of  conscience,  eh?"  sneered  the  gov- 
ernor, who  was  sobering  rapidly  now.  "Let  me  ask 
a  question  or  two.  How  much  was  that  security  debt 
your  son-in-law  let  you  in  for  ?" 

"It  was  ten  thousand  dollars.  It  is  an  honest  debt, 
and  I  shall  pay  it." 

"But  not  out  of  the  salary  of  a  circuit  judge,"  Bucks 
interposed.  "Nor  yet  out  of  the  fees  you  make  your 
clerks  divide  with  you.  And  that  isn't  all.  Have  you 
forgotten  the  gerrymander  business?  How  would  you 
like  to  see  the  true  inwardness  of  that  in  the  newspa- 
pers?" 

The  judge  shrank  as  if  the  huge  gesturing  hand  had 
struck  him. 


118  THE   GEAFTEES 

"You  wouldn't  dare/'  he  began.  "You  were  in  that, 
too,  deeper  than — " 

Again  the  governor  interrupted  him. 

"Cut  it  out,"  he  commanded.  "I  can  reward,  and  I 
can  punish.  You  are  not  going  to  do  anything  tech- 
nically illegal;  but,  by  the  gods,  you  are  going  to  walk 
the  line  laid  down  for  you.  If  you  don't,  I  shall  give 
the  documents  in  the  gerrymander  affair  to  the  papers 
the  day  after  you  fail.  Now  we'll  go  and  see  Falkland." 

MacFarlane  made  one  last  protest. 

"For  God's  sake,  Bucks !  spare  me  that.  It  is  noth- 
ing less  than  the  foulest  collusion  between  the  judge, 
the  counsel  for  the  plaintiff — and  the  devil !" 

"Cut  that  out,  too,  and  come  along,"  said  tne  gover- 
nor, brutally;  and  by  the  steadying  help  of  the  chair, 
the  door-post  and  the  wall  of  the  corridor,  he  led  the 
way  to  the  parlor  suite  on  the  floor  below. 

The  conference  in  Falkland's  rooms  was  chiefly  a 
monologue  with  the  sharp-spoken  New  York  lawyer  in 
the  speaking  part.  When  it  was  concluded  the  judge 
took  his  leave  abruptly,  pleading  the  lateness  of  the 
hour  and  his  duties  for  the  morrow.  When  he  was  gone 
the  New  Yorker  began  again. 

"You  won't  want  to  be  known  in  this,  I  take  it,"  he 
said,  nodding  at  the  governor.  "Mr.  Hawk  here  will 
answer  well  enough  for  the  legal  part,  but  how  about 


THE   HAYMAKERS  119 

the  business  end  of  it.  Have  you  got  a  man  you  can 
trust?" 

The  governor's  yellow  eyebrows  met  in  a  meaning 
scowl. 

"I've  got  a  man  I  can  hang,  which  is  more  to  the  pur- 
pose. It's  Major  Jim  Guilf ord.  He  lives  here ;  want  to 
meet  him  ?" 

"God  forbid !"  said  Falkland,  fervently.  He  rose  and 
whipped  himself  into  his  overcoat,  turning  to  Hawk: 
"Have  your  young  man  get  me  a  carriage,  and  see  to  it 
that  my  special  is  ready  to  pull  east  when  I  give  the 
word,  will  you?" 

Hawk  went  obediently,  and  the  New  Yorker  had  his 
final  word  with  the  governor  alone. 

"I  think  we  understand  each  other  perfectly,"  he 
said.  "You  are  to  have  the  patronage :  we  are  to  pay  for 
all  actual  betterments  for  which  vouchers  can  be  shown 
at  the  close  of  the  deal.  All  we  ask  is  that  the  stock  be 
depressed  to  the  point  agreed  upon  within  the  half- 
year." 

"It's  going  to  be  done,"  said  the  governor,  trying  as 
he  could  to  keep  the  eye-image  of  his  fellow  conspirator 
from  multiplying  itself  by  two. 

"All  right.  Now  as  to  the  court  affair.  If  it  is  man- 
aged exactly  as  I  have  outlined,  there  will  be  no  trouble 
— and  no  recourse  for  the  other  fellows.  When  I  say 


120  THE    GRAFTERS 

that,  I'm  leaving  out  your  Supreme  Court.  Under  cer- 
tain conditions,  if  the  defendant's  hardship  could  be 
definitely  shown,  a  writ  of  certiorari  and  supersedeas 
might  issue.  How  ahout  that?" 

The  governor  closed  one  eye  slowly,  the  better  to 
check  the  troublesome  multiplying  process. 

"The  Supreme  Court  won't  move  in  the  matter.  The 
ostensible  reason  will  be  that  the  court  is  now  two  years 
behind  its  docket." 

"And  the  real  reason  ?" 

"Of  the  three  justices,  one  of  them  was  elected  on 
our  ticket;  another  is  a  personal  friend  of  Judge  Mac- 
Farlane.  The  goods  will  be  delivered." 

"That's  all,  then;  all  but  one  word.  Your  judge  is 
a  weak  brother.  Notwithstanding  all  the  pains  I  took 
to  show  him  that  his  action  would  be  technically  un- 
assailable, he  was  ready  to  fly  the  track  at  any  moment. 
Have  you  got  him  safe  ?" 

Bucks  held  up  one  huge  hand  with  the  thumb  and 
forefinger  tightly  pressed  together. 

"I've  got  him  right  there,"  he  said.  "If  you  and 
Hawk  have  got  your  papers  in  good  shape,  the  thing 
will  go  through  like  a  hog  under  a  barbed-wire  fence." 


IX 

THE  SHOCKING  OF  HUNNICOTT 

It  was  two  weeks  after  the  date  of  the  governor's 
fishing  trip,  and  by  consequence  Judge  MacFarlane's 
court  had  been  the  even  fortnight  in  session  in  Gas- 
ton,  when  Kent's  attention  was  recalled  to  the  forgot- 
ten Varnum  case  by  another  letter  from  the  local  at- 
torney, Hunnicott. 

"Varnum  vs.  Western  Pacific  comes  up  Friday  of  this 
week,  and  they  are  going  to  press  for  trial  this  time,  and 
no  mistake,"  wrote  the  local  representative.  "Hawk  has 
been  chasing  around  getting  affidavits;  for  what  pur- 
pose I  don't  know,  though  Lesher  tells  me  that  one 
of  them  was  sworn  by  Houligan,  the  sub-contractor 
who  tried  to  fight  the  engineer's  estimates  on  the  Jump 
Creek  work. 

"Also,  there  is  a  story  going  the  rounds  that  the  suit 

is  to  be  made  a  blind  for  bigger  game,  though  I  guess 

this  is  all  gossip,  based  on  the  fact  that  Mr.  Semple 

Falkland's  private  car  stopped  over  here  two  weeks  ago, 

(121) 


122  THE    GRAFTERS 

from  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  till  midnight  of  the 
same  day.  Jason,  of  the  Clarion,  interviewed  the  New 
Yorker,  and  Falkland  told  him  he  had  stopped  over  to 
look  up  the  securities  on  a  mortgage  held  by  one  of  his 
New  York  clients." 

Kent  read  this  unofficial  letter  thoughtfully,  and 
later  on  took  it  in  to  the  general  manager. 

"Just  to  show  you  the  kind  of  jackal  we  have  to 
deal  with  in  the  smaller  towns,"  he  said,  by  way  of 
explanation.  "Here  is  a  case  that  Stephen  Hawk  built 
up  out  of  nothing  a  year  ago.  The  woman  was  put 
off  one  of  our  trains  because  she  was  trying  to  travel 
on  a  scalper's  ticket.  She  didn't  care  to  fight  about  it ; 
but  when  I  had  about  persuaded  her  to  compromise  for 
ten  dollars  and  a  pass  to  her  destination,  Hawk  got 
hold  of  her  and  induced  her  to  sue  for  five  thousand 
dollars." 

"Well?"  said  Loring. 

"We  fought  it,  of  course — in  the  only  way  it  could 
be  fought  in  the  lower  court.  I  got  a  continuance, 
and  we  choked  it  off  in  the  same  way  at  the  succeeding 
term.  The  woman  was  tired  out  long  ago,  but  Hawk 
will  hang  on  till  his  teeth  fall  out." 

"Do  you  'continue'  again?"  asked  the  general  man- 
ager. 

Kent  nodded. 


THE    SHOCKING   OF   HUNNICOTT      123 

"I  so  instructed  Hunnicott.  Luckily,  two  of  our 
most  important  witnesses  are  missing.  They  have  al- 
ways been  missing,  in  point  of  fact." 

Loring  was  glancing  over  the  letter. 

"How  about  this  affidavit  business,  and  the  Falk- 
land stop-over?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  I  fancy  that's  gossip,  pure  and  simple,  as  Hunni- 
cott says.  Hawk  is  sharp  enough  not  to  let  us  know 
if  he  were  baiting  a  trap.  And  Falkland  probably  told 
the  Clarion  man  the  simple  truth." 

Loring  nodded  in  his  turn.  Then  he  broke  away 
from  the  subject  abruptly.  "Sit  down,"  he  said;  and 
when  Kent  had  found  a  chair:  "I  had  a  caller  this 
morning — Senator  Duvall." 

State  Senator  Duvall  had  been  the  father,  or  the  os- 
tensible father,  of  the  Senate  amendment  to  House  Bill 
Twenty-nine.  He  was  known  to  the  corporations'  lobby 
as  a  legislator  who  would  sign  a  railroad's  death-war- 
rant with  one  hand  and  take  favors  from  it  with  the 
other;  and  Kent  laughed. 

"How  many  did  he  demand  passes  for,  this  time?  Or 
was  it  a  special  train  he  wanted?" 

"Neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  this  morning,  as  it 
happened,"  said  the  general  manager.  "Not  to  put 
too  fine  an  edge  upon  it,  he  had  something  to  sell,  and 
he  wanted  me  to  buy  it." 


124  THE    GEAFTERS 

"What  was  it  ?"  Kent  asked  quickly. 

Lormg.was  rubbing  his  eye-glasses  absently  with  the 
corner  of  his  handkerchief. 

"I  guess  I  made  a  mistake  in  not  turning  him  over 
to  you,  David.  He  was  too  smooth  for  me.  I  couldn't 
find  out  just  what  it  was  he  had  for  sale.  He  talked 
vaguely  about  an  impending  crisis  and  a  man  who  had 
some  information  to  dispose  of ;  said  the  man  had  come 
to  him  because  he  was  known  to  be  a  firm  friend  of  the 
Trans- Western,  and  so  on." 

Kent  gave  his  opinion  promptly. 

"It's  a  capitol-gang  deal  of  some  sort  to  hold  us 
up;  and  Duvall  is  willing  to  sell  out  his  fellow  con- 
spirators if  the  price. is  right." 

"Have  you  any  notion  of  what  it  is  ?" 

Kent  shook  his  head. 

"Not  the  slightest.  The  ways  have  been  tallowed  for 
us,  thus  far,  and  I  don't  fully  understand  it.  I  presented 
our  charter  for  re-filing  yesterday,  and  Hendricks 
passed  it  without  a  word.  As  I  was  coming  out  of  the 
secretary's  office  I  met  Bucks.  We  were  pretty  nearly 
open  enemies  in  the  old  days  in  Gaston,  but  he  went 
out  of  his  way  to  shake  hands  and  to  congratulate  me 
on  my  appointment  as  general  counsel." 

"That  was  warning  in  itself,  wasn't  it?" 

"I  took  it  that  way.    But  I  can't  fathom  his  drift; 


THE    SHOCKING   OF   HUNNICOTT      125 

which  is  the  more  unaccountable  since  I  have  it  on 
pretty  good  authority  that  the  ring  is  cinching  the 
other  companies  right  and  left.  Some  one  was  saying 
at  the  Camelot  last  night  that  the  Overland's  reor- 
ganization of  its  within-the-State  lines  was  going  to 
cost  all  kinds  of  money  in  excess  of  the  legal  fees." 

Loring's  smile  was  a  wordless  sarcasm. 

"It's  the  reward  of  virtue,"  he  said  ironically.  "We 
were  not  in  the  list  of  subscribers  to  the  conditional 
fund  for  purchasing  a  certain  veto  which  didn't  ma- 
terialize." 

"And  for  that  very  reason,  if  for  no  other,  we  may 
look  out  for  squalls,"  Kent  asserted.  "Jasper  G.  Bucks 
has  a  long  memory;  and  just  now  the  fates  have  given 
him  an  arm  to  match.  I  am  fortifying  everywhere  I 
can,  but  if  the  junto  has  it  in  for  us,  we'll  be  made 
to  sweat  blood  before  we  are  through  with  it." 

"Which  brings  us  back  to   Senator  Duvall.     Is  it 
worth  while  trying  to  do  anything  with  him?" 
i     "Oh,  I  don't  know.   I'm  opposed  to  the  method — the 
bargain  and  sale  plan — and  I  know  you  are.  Turn  him 
over  to  me  if  he  comes  in  again." 

:  When  Kent  had  dictated  a  letter  in  answer  to  Hun- 
nicott's,  he  dismissed  the  Varnum  matter  from  his 
mind,  having  other  and  more  important  things  to  think 
of.  So,  on  the  Friday,  when  the  case  was  reached  on 


126  THE    GRAFTEES 

Judge  MacFarlane's  docket — but  really,  it  is  worth  our 
while  to  be  present  in  the  Gaston  court-room  to  see  and 
hear  what  befalls. 

When  the  Varnum  case  was  called,  Hunnicott 
promptly  moved  for  a  third  continuance,  in  accord- 
ance with  his  instructions.  The  judge  heard  his  argu- 
ment, the  old  and  well-worn  one  of  the  absence  of  im- 
portant witnesses,  with  perfect  patience;  and  after  list- 
ening to  Hawk's  protest,  which  was  hardly  more  than 
mechanical,  he  granted  the  continuance. 

Then  came  the  after-piece.  Court  adjourned,  and 
immediately  Hawk  asked  leave  to  present,  "at  cham- 
bers," an  amended  petition.  Hunnicott  was  waylaid 
by  a  court  officer  as  he  was  leaving  the  room;  and  a 
moment  later,  totally  unprepared,  he  was  in  the  judge's 
office,  listening  in  some  dazed  fashion  while  Hawk  went 
glibly  through  the  formalities  of  presenting  his  peti- 
tion. 

Not  until  the  papers  were  served  upon  him  as  the 
company's  attorney,  and  the  judge  was  naming  three 
o'clock  of  the  following  afternoon  as  the  time  which 
he  would  appoint  for  the  preliminary  hearing,  did  the 
local  attorney  come  alive. 

"But,  your  Honor! — a  delay  of  only  twenty-four 
hours  in  which  to  prepare  a  rejoinder  to  this  petition — 
to  allegations  of  such  astounding  gravity?"  he  began, 


THE    SHOCKING   OF   HTONICOTT      127 

shocked  into  action  by  the  very  ungraspable  magnitude 
of  the  thing. 

"What  more  could  you  ask,  Mr.  Hunnicott  ?"  said 
the  judge,  mildly.  "You  have  already  had  a  full  meas- 
ure of  delay  on  the  original  petition.  Yet  I  am  will- 
ing to  extend  the  time  if  you  can  come  to  an  agreement 
with  Mr.  Hawk,  here." 

Hunnicott  knew  the  hopelessness  of  that  and  did 
not  make  the  attempt.  Instead,  he  essayed  a  new  line 
of  objection. 

"The  time  would  be  long  enough  if  Gaston  were  the 
headquarters  of  the  company,  your  Honor.  But  in 
such  a  grave  and  important  charge  as  this  amended 
petition  brings,  our  general  counsel  should  appear  in 
person,  and — " 

"You  are  the  company's  attorney,  Mr.  Hunnicott," 
said  the  judge,  dryly;  "and  you  have  hitherto  been 
deemed  competent  to  conduct  the  case  in  behalf  of  the 
defendant.  I  am  unwilling  to  work  a  hardship  to  any 
one,  but  I  can  not  entertain  your  protest.  The  pre- 
liminary hearing  will  be  at  three  o'clock  to-morrow." 

Hunnicott  knew  when  he  was  definitely  at  the  string's 
end;  and  when  he  was  out  of  the  judge's  room  and 
the  Court  House,  he  made  a  dash  for  his  office,  dry- 
lipped  and  panting.  Ten  minutes  sufficed  for  the  writ- 
ing of  a  telegram  to  Kent,  and  he  was  half-way  down 


128  THE    GEAFTERS 

to  the  station  with  it  when  it  occurred  to  him  that  it 
would  never  do  to  trust  the  incendiary  thing  to  the 
wires  in  plain  English.  There  was  a  little-used  cipher 
code  in  his  desk  provided  for  just  such  emergencies, 
and  back  he  went  to  labor  sweating  over  the  task  of  se- 
curing secrecy  at  the  expense  of  the  precious  minutes 
of  time.  Wherefore,  it  was  about  four  o'clock  when 
he  handed  the  telegram  to  the  station  operator,  and  ad- 
jured him  by  all  that  was  good  and  great  not  to  delay 
its  sending. 

It  was  just  here  he  made  his  first  and  only  slip, 
since  he  did  not  stay  to  see  the  thing  done.  It  chanced 
that  the  regular  day  operator  was  off  on  leave  of  ab- 
sence, and  his  substitute,  a  young  man  from  the 
train-despatcher's  office,  was  a  person  who  considered 
the  company  wires  an  exclusive  appanage  of  the 
train  service  department.  At  the  moment  of  Hunni- 
cott's  assault  he  was  taking  an  order  for  Number  17; 
and  observing  that  the  lawyer's  cipher  "rush"  covered 
four  closely  written  pages,  he  hung  it  upon  the  send- 
ing hook  with  a  malediction  on  the  legal  department 
for  burdening  the  wires  with  its  mail  correspondence, 
and  so  forgot  it. 

It  was  nine  o'clock  when  the  night  operator  came 
on  duty;  and  being  a  careful  man,  he  not  only  looked 
first  to  his  sending  hook,  but  was  thoughtful  enough 


THE    SHOCKING   OF   HUNNICOTT      129 

to  rim  over  the  accumulation  of  messages  waiting  to  be 
transmitted,  to  the  end  that  he  might  give  precedence 
to  the  most  important.  And  when  he  came  to  Himni- 
cott' s  cipher  with  the  thrice-underlined  "BUSH"  writ- 
ten across  its  face,  and  had  marked  the  hour  of  its 
handing  in,  he  had  the  good  sense  to  hang  up  the  en- 
tire wire  business  of  the  railroad  until  the  thing  was 
safely  out  of  his  office. 

It  was  half-past  nine  when  the  all-important  cipher 
got  itself  written  out  in  the  headquarters  office  at  the 
capital;  and  for  two  anxious  hours  the  receiving  op- 
erator tried  by  all  means  in  his  power  to  find  the  gen- 
eral counsel — tried  and  failed.  For,  to  make  the  chain 
of  mishaps  complete  in  all  its  links,  Kent  and  Loring 
were  spending  the  evening  at  Miss  Portia  Van  Brock's, 
having  been  bidden  to  meet  a  man  they  were  both  will- 
ing to  cultivate — Oliver  Marston,  the  lieutenant-gov- 
ernor. And  for  this  cause  it  wanted  but  five  minutes  of 
midnight  when  Kent  burst  into  Loring's  bedroom  on  the 
third  floor  of  the  Clarendon,  catastrophic  news  in  hand. 

"For  heaven's  sake,  read  that!"  he  gasped;  and  Lor- 
ing sat  on  the  edge  of  the  bed  to  do  it. 

"So !  they've  sprung  their  mine  at  last :  this  is  what 
Senator  Duvall  was  trying  to  sell  us,"  he  said  quietly, 
when  he  had  mastered  the  purport  of  Hunnicott's  war 
news. 


130  THE   GEAFTEES 

Kent  had  caught  his  second  wind  in  the  moment  of 
respite,  and  was  settling  into  the  collar  in  a  way  to 
strain  the  working  harness  to  the  breaking  point. 

"It's  a  put-up  job  from  away  back,"  he  gritted.  "If 
I'd  had  the  sense  of  a  pack-mule  I  should  have  been  on 
the  lookout  for  just  such  a  trap  as  this.  Look  at  the 
date  of  that  message!" 

The  general  manager  did  look,  and  shook  his  head. 
"  deceived,  3 :45,  P.  M.;  Forwarded,  9 :17,  P.  M.'  That 
will  cost  somebody  his  job.  What  do  we  do?" 

"We  get  busy  at  the  drop  of  the  hat.  Luckily,  we 
have  the  news,  though  I'll  bet  high  it  wasn't  Hawk's 
fault  that  this  message  came  through  with  no  more  than 
eight  hours'  delay.  Get  into  your  clothes,  man!  The 
minutes  are  precious,  now!" 

Loring  began  to  dress  while  Kent  walked  the  floor  in 
a  hot  fit  of  impatience. 

"The  mastodonic  cheek  of  the  thing!"  he  kept  rej 
peating,  until  Loring  pulled  him  down  with  another 
quiet  remark. 

"Tell  n\3  what  we  have  to  do,  David.  I  am  a  little 
lame  in  law  matters." 

"Do?  We  have  to  appear  in  Judge  MacFarlane's 
court  to-morrow  afternoon  prepared  to  show  that  this 
thing  is  only  a  hold-up  with  a  blank  cartridge.  Hawk 
meant  to  take  a  snap  judgment.  He  counted  on  throw- 
ing the  whole  thing  up  against  Hunnicott,  knowing 


THE   SHOCKING   OF   HUOTICOTT      131 

perfectly  well  that  a  little  local  attorney  at  a  way-station 
couldn't  begin  to  secure  the  necessary  affidavits.'5 

Loring  paused  with  one  end  of  his  collar  flying  loose. 

"Let  me  understand/'  he  said.  "Do  we  have  to  dis- 
prove these  charges  by  affidavits  ?" 

"Certainly;  that  is  the  proper  rejoinder — the  only 
one,  in  fact,"  said  Kent;  then,  as  a  great  doubt  laid 
hold  of  him  and  shook  him:  "You  don't  mean  to 
say  there  is  any  doubt  about  our  ability  to  do  it?" 

"Oh,  no;  I  suppose  not,  if  it  comes  to  a  show-down. 
But  I  was  thinking  of  your  man  Hunnicott.  Doesn't 
it  occur  to  you  that  he  is  in  just  about  as  good  a  fix  to 
secure  those  affidavits  in  Gaston  as  we  are  here, 
David?" 

"Good  Lord !  Do  you  mean  that  we  have  to  send  to 
Boston  for  our  ammunition?" 

"Haven't  we?  Don't  you  see  how  nicely  the  thing 
is  timed?  Ten  days  later  our  Trans- Western  reor- 
ganization would  Be  complete,  and  we  could  swear  our 
own  officers  on  the  spot.  These  people  know  what  they 
are  about." 

Kent  was  walking  the  floor  again,  but  now  the 
strength  of  the  man  was  coming  uppermost. 

"Never  mind:  we'll  wire  Boston,  and  then  we'll  do 
what  we  can  here.  Could  you  get  me  to  Gaston  on  a 
special  engine  in  three  hours?" 

"Yes." 


132  THE   GRAFTERS 

"Then  we  have  till  eleven  o'clock  to-morrow  to  pre- 
pare. I'll  be  ready  by  that  time." 

"David,  you  are  a  brick  when  it  comes  to  the  in- 
fighting," said  the  general  manager;  and  then  he  fin- 
ished buttoning  his  collar. 


X 

WITHOUT  BENEFIT   OP   CLERGY 

At  ten  forty-eight  on  the  Saturday  morning  Kent  was 
standing  with  the  general  manager  on  the  Union  S'ta- 
tion  track  platform  beside  the  engine  which  was  to 
make  the  flying  run  to  Gaston. 

Nine  hours  of  sharp  work  lay  between  the  hurried 
conference  in  Loring's  bedroom  and  the  drive  to  the 
station  at  a  quarter  before  eleven.  Boston  had  been 
wired;  divers  and  sundry  friends  of  the  railway  com- 
pany had  been  interviewed;  some  few  affidavits  had 
been  secured;  and  now  they  were  waiting  to  give  Bos- 
ton its  last  chance,  with  a  clerk  hanging  over  the 
operator  in  the  station  telegraph  office  to  catch  the 
first  word  of  encouragement. 

"If  the  Advisory  Board  doesn't  send  us  something 

pretty  solid,   I'm  going  into  this  thing  lame,"  said 

Kent,  dubiously.    "Of  course,  what  Boston  can  send  us 

will  be  only  corroborative;  unfortunately  we  can't  wire 

(133) 


134  THE    GRAFTERS 

affidavits.  But  it  will  help.  What  we  have  secured  here 
lacks  directness." 

"Necessarily,"  said  Loring.  "But  I'm  banking  on 
the  Board.  If  we  don't  get  the  ammunition  before  you 
have  to  start,  I  can  wire  it  to  you  at  Gaston.  That 
gives  us  three  hours  more  to  go  and  come  on." 

"Yes;  and  if  it  comes  to  the  worst — if  the  decision 
be  unfavorable — it  can  only  embarrass  us  temporarily. 
This  is  merely  the  preliminary  hearing,  and  nothing  per- 
manent can  be  established  until  we  have  had  a  hear- 
ing on  the  merits,  and  we  can  go  armed  to  that,  at  all 
events." 

The  general  manager  was  looking  at  his  watch,  and 
he  shut  the  case  with  a  snap. 

"Don't  you  let  it  come  to  that,  as  long  as  you  have 
a  leg  to  stand  on,  David,"  he  said  impressively.  "An 
interregnum  of  ten  days  might  make  it  exceedingly 
difficult  for  us  to  prove  anything."  Then,  as  the  tele- 
graph office  watcher  came  to  the  door  and  shook  his 
head  as  a  sign  that  Boston  was  still  silent:  "Your 
time  is  up.  Off  with  you,  and  don't  let  Oleson  scare 
you  when  he  gets  219  in  motion.  He  is  a  good  runner, 
and  you  have  a  clear  track." 

Kent  clambered  to  the  footplate  of  the  smart  eight- 
wheeler. 

"Can  you  make  it  by  two  o'clock?"  he  asked,  when 


WITHOUT   BENEFIT    OF   CLERGY      135 

the  engineer,  a  big-boned,  blue-eyed  Norwegian,  dropped 
the  reversing  lever  into  the  corner  for  the  start. 

"Ay  tank  maybe  so,  ain'd  it?  Yust  you  climb  opp 
dat  odder  box,  Mester  Kent,  and  hoi'  you'  hair  on. 
Ve  bane  gone  to  maig  dat  time,  als'  ve  preak  some- 
dings,  ja!"  and  he  sent  the  light  engine  spinning  down 
the  yards  to  a  quickstep  of  forty  miles  an  hour. 

Kent's  after-memory  of  that  distance-devouring  rush 
was  a  blurred  picture  of  a  plunging,  rocking,  clamoring 
engine  bounding  over  mile  after  mile  of  the  brown 
plain;  of  the  endless  dizzying  procession  of  oncom- 
ing telegraph  poles  hurtling  like  great  side-flung  pro- 
jectiles past  the  cab  windows;  of  now  and  then  a 
lonely  prairie  station  with  waving  semaphore  arms, 
sighted,  passed  and  left  behind  in  a  whirling  sand- 
cloud  in  one  and  the  same  heart-beat.  And  for  the 
central  figure  in  the  picture,  the  one  constant  quantity 
when  all  else  was  mutable  and  shifting  and  indistinct, 
the  big,  calm-eyed  Norwegian  on  the  opposite  box,  hurl- 
ing his  huge  machine  doggedly  through  space. 

At  12:45  they  stopped  for  water  at  a  solitary  tank 
in  the  midst  of  the  brown  desert.  Kent  got  down 
stiffly  from  his  cramped  seat  on  the  fireman's  box  and 
wetted  his  parched  lips  at  the  nozzle  of  the  tender  hose. 

"Do  we  make  it,  Jarl?"  he  asked. 

The  engineer  wagged  his  head. 


136  THE   GEAFTERS 

"Ay  tank  so.  Ve  maig  it  all  right  iff  dey  haf  bane 
got  dose  track  clear." 

"There  are  other  trains  to  meet?" 

"Ja;  two  bane  comin'  dis  vay;  ant  Nummer  Sam- 
teen  ve  pass  opp  by." 

Oleson  dropped  off  to  pour  a  little  oil  into  the  speed- 
woundings  while  the  tank  was  filling;  and  presently 
the  dizzying  race  began  again.  For  a  time  all  things 
were  propitious.  The  two  trains  to  be  met  were  found 
snugly  withdrawn  on  the  sidings  at  Mavero  and  Agri- 
culta,  and  the  station  semaphores  beckoned  the  flying 
special  past  at  full  speed.  Kent  checked  off  the  dodg- 
ing mile-posts:  the  pace  was  bettering  the  fastest  run 
ever  made  on  the  Prairie  Division — which  was  saying 
a  good  deal. 

But  at  Juniberg,  twenty-seven  miles  out  of  Gaston, 
there  was  a  delay.  Train  Number  17,  the  east-bound 
time  freight,  had  left  Juniberg  at  one  o'clock,  having 
ample  time  to  make  Lesterville,  the  next  station  east, 
before  the  light  engine  could  possibly  overtake  it.  But 
Lesterville  had  not  yet  reported  its  arrival;  for  which 
cause  the  agent  at  Juniberg  was  constrained  to  put 
out  his  stop  signal,  and  Kent's  special  came  to  a  stand 
at  the  platform. 

Under  the  circumstances,  there  appeared  to  be  noth- 
ing for  it  but  to  wait  until  the  delayed  Number  17  was 


WITHOUT   BENEFIT   OF    CLERGY      137 

heard  from ;  and  Kent's  first  care  was  to  report  to  Lor- 
ing., and  to  ask  if  there  were  anything  from  Boston. 

The  reply  was  encouraging.  A  complete  denial  of 
everything,  signed  by  the  proper  officials,  had  been  re- 
ceived and  repeated  to  Kent  at  Gaston — was  there  now 
awaiting  him.  Kent  saw  in  anticipation  the  nicely  cal- 
culated scheme  of  the  junto  crumbling  into  small  dust 
in  the  precise  moment  of  fruition,  and  had  a  sharp  at- 
tack of  ante-triumph  which  he  had  to  walk  off  in  turns 
up  and  down  the  long  platform.  But  as  the  waiting  grew 
longer,  and  the  dragging  minutes  totaled  the  quarter- 
hour  and  then  the  half,  he  began  to  perspire  again. 

Half-past  two  came  and  went,  and  still  there  was  no 
hopeful  word  from  Lesterville.  Kent  had  speech  with 
Oleson,  watch  in  hand.  Would  the  engineer  take  the 
risk  of  a  rear-end  collision  on  a  general  manager's  or- 
der ?  Oleson  would  obey  orders  if  the  heavens  fell ;  and 
Kent  flew  to  the  wire  again.  Hunnicott,  at  Gaston,  was 
besought  to  gain  time  in  the  hearing  by  any  and  all 
means ;  and  Loring  was  asked  to  authorize  the  risk  of  a 
rear-end  smash-up.  He  did  it  promptly.  The  light 
engine  was  to  go  on  until  it  should  "pick  up"  the  de- 
layed train  between  stations. 

The  Juniberg  man  gave  Oleson  his  release  and  the 
order  to  proceed  with  due  care  while  the  sounder  was 
still  clicking  a  further  communication  from  headquar- 
ters. Loring  was  providing  for  the  last  contingency  by 


138  THE   GRAFTEES 

sending  Kent  the  authority  to  requisition  Number  17's 
engine  for  the  completion  of  the  run  in  case  the  track 
should  be  blocked,  with  the  freight  engine  free  beyond 
the  obstruction. 

Having  his  shackles  stricken  off,  the  Norwegian  pro- 
ceeded "with  due  care,"  which  is  to  say  that  he  sent  the 
eight-wheeler  darting  down  the  line  toward  Lesterville 
at  the  rate  of  a  mile  a  minute.  The  mystery  of  the  delay 
was  solved  at  a  point  half-way  between  the  two  stations. 
A  broken  flange  had  derailed  three  cars  of  the  freight, 
and  the  block  was  impassable. 

Armed  with  the  general  manager's  mandatory  wire, 
Kent  ran  forward  to  the  engine  of  the  freight  train  and 
was  shortly  on  his  way  again.  But  in  the  twenty-mile 
run  to  Gaston  more  time  was  lost  by  the  lumbering 
freight  locomotive,  and  it  was  twenty  minutes  past 
three  o'clock  when  the  county  seat  came  in  sight  and 
Kent  began  to  oscillate  between  two  sharp-pointed  horns 
of  a  cruel  dilemma. 

By  dropping  off  at  the  street-crossing  nearest  the 
Court  House,  he  might  still  be  in  time  to  get  a  hearing 
with  such  documentary  backing  as  he  had  been  able  to 
secure  at  the  capital.  By  going  on  to  the  station  he 
could  pick  up  the  Boston  wire  which,  while  it  was  not 
strictly  evidence,  might  create  a  strong  presumption  in 
his  favor ;  but  in  this  case  he  would  probably  be  too  late 
to  use  it.  So  he  counted  the  rail-lengths,  watch  in  hand, 


WITHOUT   BENEFIT   OF   CLEEGY      139 

with  a  curse  to  the  count  for  his  witlessness  in  failing  to 
have  Loring  repeat  the  Boston  message  to  him  during 
the  long  wait  at  Juniberg ;  and  when  the  time  for  the  de- 
cision arrived  he  signaled  the  engineer  to  slow  down, 
jumped  from  the  step  at  the  nearest  crossing  and  has- 
tened up  the  street  toward  the  Court  House. 

In  the  mean  time,  to  go  back  a  little,  during  this  day 
of  hurryings  to  and  fro  Blashfield  Hunnicott  had  been 
having  the  exciting  experiences  of  a  decade  crowded  into 
a  corresponding  number  of  hours.  Early  in  the  morn- 
ing he  had  begun  besieging  the  headquarters  wire  office 
for  news  and  instructions,  and,  owing  to  Kent's  good  in- 
tentions to  be  on  the  ground  in  person,  had  got  little 
enough  of  either. 

At  length,  to  his  unspeakable  relief,  he  had  news  of 
the  coming  special;  and  with  the  conviction  that  help 
was  at  hand  he  waited  at  the  station  with  what  coolness 
there  was  in  him  to  meet  his  chief.  But  as  the  time  for 
the  hearing  drew  near  he  grew  nervous  again;  and  all 
the  keen  pains  of  utter  helplessness  returned  with  re- 
newed acuteness  when  the  operator,  who  had  overheard 
the  Juniberg-Lesterville  wire  talk,  told  him  that  the 
special  was  hung  up  at  the  former  station. 

"0  my  good  Lord !"  he  groaned.  "I'm  in  for  it  with 
empty  hands!"  None  the  less,  he  ran  to  the  baggage- 
room  end  of  the  building  and,  capturing  an  express 
wagon,  had  himself  trundled  out  to  the  Court  House. 


140  THE    GEAFTEES 

The  judge  was  at  his  desk  when  Hunnicott  entered, 
and  Hawk  was  on  hand,  calmly  reading  the  morning 
paper.  The  hands  of  the  clock  on  the  wall  opposite  the 
judge's  desk  pointed  to  five  minutes  of  the  hour,  and 
for  five  minutes  Hunnicott  sat  listening,  hoping  against 
hope  that  he  should  hear  the  rush  and  roar  of  the  incom- 
ing special. 

Promptly  on  the  stroke  of  three  the  judge  tapped 
upon  his  desk  with  his  pencil. 

"Now,  gentlemen,  proceed  with  your  case;  and  I 
must  ask  you  to  be  as  brief  as  possible.  I  have  an  ap- 
pointment at  four  which  can  not  be  postponed,"  he  said 
quietly;  and  Hawk  threw  down  his  paper  and  began  at 
once. 

Hunnicott  heard  his  opponent's  argument  mechan- 
ically, having  his  ear  attuned  for  whistle  signals  and 
wheel  drummings.  Hawk  spoke  rapidly  and  straight 
to  his  point,  as  befitted  a  man  speaking  to  the  facts  and 
with  no  jury  present  to  be  swayed  by  oratorical  effort. 
When  he  came  to  the  summarizing  of  the  allegations  in 
the  amended  petition,  he  did  it  wholly  without  heat, 
piling  up  the  accusations  one  upon  another  with  the 
careful  method  of  a  bricklayer  building  a  wall.  The 
wall-building  simile  thrust  itself  upon  Hunnicott  with 
irresistible  force  as  he  listened.  If  the  special  engine 
should  not  dash  up  in  time  to  batter  down  the  wall — 

Hawk  closed  as  dispassionately  as  he  had  begun,  and 


WITHOUT   BENEFIT    OF   CLEEGY      141 

the  judge  bowed  gravely  in  Hunnicott's  direction.  The 
local  attorney  got  upon  his  feet,  and  as  he  began  to 
speak  a  telegram  was  handed  in.  It  was  Kent's  wire 
from  Juniberg,  beseeching  him  to  gain  time  at  all  haz- 
ards, and  he  settled  himself  to  the  task.  For  thirty  drag- 
ging minutes  he  rang  the  changes  on  the  various  steps 
in  the  suit,  knowing  well  that  the  fatal  moment  was  ap- 
proaching when — Kent  still  failing  him — he  would  be 
compelled  to  submit  his  case  without  a  scrap  of  an  affi- 
davit to  support  it. 

The  moment  came,  and  still  there  was  no  encouraging 
whistle  shriek  from  the  dun  plain  beyond  the  open  win- 
dows. Hawk  was  visibly  disgusted,  and  Judge  MacFar- 
lane  was  growing  justly  impatient.  Hunnicott  began 
again,  and  the  judge  reproved  him  mildly. 

"Much  of  what  you  are  saying  is  entirely  irrelevant, 
Mr.  Hunnicott.  This  hearing  is  on  the  plaintiff's 
amended  petition." 

No  one  knew  better  than  the  local  attorney  that  he 
was  wholly  at  the  court's  mercy;  that  he  had  been  so 
from  the  moment  the  judge  began  to  consider  his  purely 
formal  defense,  entirely  unsupported  by  affidavits  or 
evidence  of  any  kind.  None  the  less,  he  strung  his  de- 
nials out  by  every  amplification  he  could  devise,  and, 
having  fired  his  last  shot,  sat  down  in  despairing  breath- 
lessness  to  hear  the  judge's  summing-up  and  decision. 

Judge  MacFarlane  was  mercifully  brief.    On  the  part 


U2  THE   GRAFTERS 

of  the  plaintiff  there  was  an  amended  petition  fully 
fortified  by  uncontroverted  affidavits.  On  the  part  of  the 
defendant  company  there  was  nothing  but  a  formal  de- 
nial of  the  allegations.  The  duty  of  the  court  in  the 
premises  was  clear.  The  prayer  of  the  plaintiff  was 
granted,  the  temporary  relief  asked  for  was  given,  and 
the  order  of  the  court  would  issue  accordingly. 

The  judge  was  rising  when  the  still,  hot  air  of  the 
room  began  to  vibrate  with  the  tremulous  thunder  of 
the  sound  for  which  Hunnicott  had  been  so  long  strain- 
ing his  ears.  He  was  the  first  of  the  three  to  hear  it, 
and  he  hurried  out  ahead  of  the  others.  At  the  foot  of 
the  stair  he  ran  blindly  against  Kent,  dusty,  travel-worn 
and  haggard. 

"You're  too  late  I"  he  blurted  out.  "We're  done  up. 
Hawk's  petition  has  been  granted  and  the  road  is  in  the 
hands  of  a  receiver." 

Kent  dashed  his  fist  upon  the  stair-rail. 

"Who  is  the  man  ?"  he  demanded. 

"Major  Jim  Guilford,"  said  Hunnicott.  Then,  as 
footfalls  coming  stairward  were  heard  in  the  upper  cor- 
ridor, he  locked  arms  with  Kent,  faced  him  about  and 
thrust  him  out  over  the  door-stone.  "Let's  get  out  of 
this.  You  look  as  if  you  might  kill  somebody." 


XI 

THE  LAST  DITCH 

It  was  a  mark  of  the  later  and  larger  development  of 
David  Kent  that  he  was  able  to  keep  his  head  in  the 
moment  of  catastrophes.  In  boyhood  his  hair  had  been 
a  brick-dust  red,  and  having  the  temperament  which  be- 
longs of  right  to  the  auburn-hued,  his  first  impulse  was 
to  face  about  and  make  a  personal  matter  of  the  legal 
robbery  with  Judge  MacFarlane. 

Happily  for  all  concerned,  Hunnicott's  better  coun- 
sels prevailed,  and  when  the  anger  fit  passed  Kent  found 
himself  growing  cool  and  determined.  Hunnicott  was 
crestfallen  and  disposed  to  be  apologetic;  but  Kent  did 
him  justice. 

"Don't  blame  yourself:  there  was  nothing  else  you 
could  have  done.  Have  you  a  stenographer  in  your 
office?" 


"A  good  one?" 

"Itfs  young  Perkins  :  you  know  him." 
(143) 


T 


144  THE    GRAFTERS 

"He'll  do.  'Phone  him  to  run  down  to  the  station  and 
get  what  telegrams  there  are  for  me,  and  we'll  talk  as 
we  go." 

Once  free  of  the  Court  House,  Kent  began  a  rapid- 
fire  of  questions. 

"Where  is  Judge  MacFarlane  stopping  ?" 

"At  the  Mid-Continent." 

"Have  you  any  idea  when  he  intends  leaving  town?" 

"No;  but  he  will  probably  take  the  first  train.  He 
never  stays  here  an  hour  longer  than  he  has  to  after 
adjournment." 

"That  would  be  the  Flyer  east  at  six  o'clock.  Is  he 
going  east  ?" 

"Come  to  think  of  it,  I  believe  he  is.  Somebody  said 
he  was  going  to  Hot  Springs.  He's  in  miserable 
health." 

Kent  saw  more  possibilities,  and  worse,  and  quick- 
ened his  pace  a  little. 

"I  hope  your  young  man  won't  let  the  grass  grow 
under  his  feet,"  he  said.  "The  minutes  between  now 
and  six  o'clock  are  worth  days  to  us." 

"What  do  we  do?"  asked  Hunnicott,  willing  to  take 
a  little  lesson  in  practice  as  he  ran. 

"The  affidavits  I  have  brought  with  me  and  the  tele- 
grams which  are  waiting  at  the  station  must  convince 
MacFarlane  that  he  has  made  a  mistake.  We  shall  pre- 
pare a  motion  for  the  discharge  of  the  receiver  and  for 


THE   LAST   DITCH  145 

the  vacation  of  the  order  appointing  him,  and  ask  the 
judge  to  set  an  early  day  for  the  hearing  on  the  merits 
of  the  case.  He  can't  refuse." 

Hunnicott  shook  his  head. 

"It  has  been  all  cut  and  dried  from  'way  back,"  he  ob- 
jected. "They  won't  let  you  upset  it  at  the  last  mo- 
ment." 

"We'll  give  them  a  run  for  their  money,"  said  Kent. 
"A  good  bit  of  it  depends  upon  Perkins'  speed  as  a 
stenographer." 

As  it  befell,  Perkins  did  not  prove  a  disappointment, 
and  by  five  o'clock  Kent  was  in  the  lobby  of  the  Mid- 
Continent,  sending  his  card  up  to  the  judge's  room. 
Word  came  back  that  the  judge  was  in  the  cafe  fortify- 
ing the  inner  man  in  preparation  for  his  journey,  and 
Kent  did  not  stand  upon  ceremony.  From  the  archway 
of  the  dining-room  he  marked  down  his  man  at  a  small 
table  in  the  corner,  and  went  to  him  at  once,  plunging 
promptly  into  the  matter  in  hand. 

"The  exigencies  of  the  case  must  plead  my  excuse  for 
intruding  upon  you  here,  Judge  MacFarlane,"  he  began 
courteously.  "But  I  have  been  told  that  you  were  leav- 
ing town — " 

The  judge  waved  him  down  with  a  deprecatory  fork. 

"Court  is  adjourned,  Mr.  Kent,  and  I  must  decline 
to  discuss  the  case  ex  parte.  Why  did  you  allow  it  to 
go  by  default?" 


146  THE    GRAFTERS 

"That  is  precisely  what  I  am  here  to  explain,"  said 
Kent,  suavely.  "The  time  allowed  us  was  very  short; 
and  a  series  of  accidents — " 

Again  the  judge  interrupted. 

"A  court  can  hardly  take  cognizance  of  accidents, 
Mr.  Kent.  Your  local  attorney  was  on  the  ground  and 
he  had  the  full  benefit  of  the  delay/' 

"I  know,"  was  the  patient  rejoinder.  "Technically, 
your  order  is  unassailable.  None  the  less,  a  great  in- 
justice has  been  done,  as  we  are  prepared  to  prove.  I 
am  not  here  to  ask  you  to  reopen  the  case  at  your  din- 
ner-table, but  if  you  will  glance  over  these  papers  I  am 
sure  you  will  set  an  early  day  for  the  hearing  upon  the 
merits." 

Judge  MacFarlane  forced  a  gray  smile. 

"You  vote  yea  and  nay  in  the  same  breath,  Mr.  Kent. 
If  I  should  examine  your  papers,  I  should  be  reopening 
the  case  at  my  dinner-table.  You  shall  have  your  hear- 
ing in  due  course." 

"At  chambers?"  said  Kent.  "We  shall  be  ready  at 
any  moment ;  we  are  ready  now,  in  point  of  fact." 

"I  can  not  say  as  to  that.  My  health  is  very  pre- 
carious, and  I  am  under  a  physician's  orders  to  take  a 
complete  rest  for  a  time.  I  am  sorry  if  the  delay  shall 
work  a  hardship  to  the  company  you  represent;  but 
under  the  circumstances,  with  not  even  an  affidavit  of- 
fered by  your  side,  it  is  your  misfortune.  And  now  I 


THE   LAST   DITCH  147 

shall  have  to  ask  you  to  excuse  me.  It  lacks  but  a  few 
minutes  of  my  train  time." 

The  hotel  porter  was  droning  out  the  call  for  the 
east-bound  Flyer,  and  Kent  effaced  himself  while  Judge 
MacFarlane  was  paying  his  bill  and  making  ready  for 
his  departure.  But  when  the  judge  set  out  to  walk  to  the 
station,  Kent  walked  with  him.  There  were  five  squares 
to  be  measured,  and  for  five  squares  he  hung  at  MacFar- 
lane's  elbow  and  the  plea  he  made  should  have  won  him 
a  hearing.  Yet  the  judge  remained  impassible,  and  at 
the  end  of  the  argument  turned  him  back  in  a  word  to 
his  starting  point. 

"I  can  not  recall  the  order  at  this  time,  if  I  would, 
Mr.  Kent ;  neither  can  I  set  a  day  for  the  hearing  on  the 
merits.  What  has  been  done  was  done  in  open  court  and 
in  the  presence  of  your  attorney,  who  offered  no  evidence 
in  contradiction  of  the  allegations  set  forth  in  the  plain- 
tiff's amended  petition,  although  they  were  supported 
by  more  than  a  dozen  affidavits;  and  it  can  not  be  un- 
done in  the  streets.  Since  you  have  not  improved  your 
opportunities,  you  must  abide  the  consequences.  The 
law  can  not  be  hurried." 

They  had  reached  the  station  and  the  east-bound  train 
was  whistling  for  Gaston.  Kent's  patience  was  nearly 
gone,  and  the  auburn-hued  temperament  was  clamoring 
hotly  for  its  innings. 

"This  vacation  of  yours,  Judge  MacFarlane:  how 


148  THE    GEAFTEES 

long  is  it  likely  to  last?"  he  inquired,  muzzling  his 
wrath  yet  another  moment. 

"I  can  not  say ;  if  I  could  I  might  be  able  to  give  you 
a  more  definite  answer  as  to  the  hearing  on  the  merits. 
But  my  health  is  very  miserable,  as  I  have  said.  If  I 
am  able  to  return  shortly,  I  shall  give  you  the  hearing 
at  chambers  at  an  early  date." 

"And  if  not?" 

"If  not,  I  am  afraid  it  will  have  to  go  over  to  the 
next  term  of  court." 

"Six  months,"  said  Kent;  and  then  his  temper  broke 
loose.  "Judge  MacFarlane,  it  is  my  opinion,  speaking 
as  man  to  man,  that  you  are  a  scoundrel.  I  know  what 
you  have  done,  and  why  you  have  done  it.  Also,  I  know 
why  you  are  running  away,  now  that  it  is  done.  So  help 
me  God,  I'll  bring  you  to  book  for  it  if  I  have  to  make  a 
lifetime  job  of  it !  It's  all  right  for  your  political  back- 
ers; they  are  thieves  and  bushwhackers,  and  they  make 
no  secret  of  it.  But  there  is  one  thing  worse  than  a 
trickster,  and  that  is  a  trickster's  tool !" 

For  the  moment  while  the  train  was  hammering  in 
over  the  switches  they  stood  facing  each  other  fiercely, 
all  masks  flung  aside,  each  after  his  kind;  the  younger 
man  flushed  and  battle-mad;  the  elder  white,  haggard, 
tremulous.  Kent  did  not  guess,  then  or  ever,  how  near 
he  came  to  death.  Two  years  earlier  a  judge  had  been 
shot  and  maimed  on  a  western  circuit  and  since  then, 


THE   LAST   DITCH  149 

MacFarlane  had  taken  a  coward's  precaution.  Here  was 
a  man  that  knew,  and  while  he  lived  the  cup  of  trem- 
bling might  never  be  put  aside. 

It  was  the  conductor's  cry  of  "All  aboard !"  that  broke 
the  homicidal  spell.  Judge  MacFarlane  started  guiltily, 
shook  off  the  angry  eye-grip  of  his  accuser,  and  went  to 
take  his  place  in  the  Pullman.  One  minute  later  the 
east-bound  train  was  threading  its  way  out  among  the 
switches  of  the  lower  yard,  and  Kent  had  burst  into  the 
telegraph  office  to  wire  the  volcanic  news  to  his  chief. 


XII 

THE  MAN  IN  POSSESSION 

Appraised  at  its  value  in  the  current  coin  of  street 
gossip,  the  legal  seizure  of  the  Trans- Western  figured 
mainly  as  an  example  of  the  failure  of  modern  business 
methods  when  applied  to  the  concealment  of  a  working 
corporation's  true  financial  condition. 

This  unsympathetic  point  of  view  was  sufficiently  de- 
fined in  a  bit  of  shop-talk  between  Harnwicke,  the  cold- 
blooded, and  his  traffic  manager  in  the  office  of  the 
Overland  Short  Line  the  morning  after  the  newspaper 
announcement  of  the  receivership. 

"I  told  you  they  were  in  deep  water,"  said  the  lawyer, 
confidently.  "They  haven't  been  making  any  earnings 
— net  earnings — since  the  Y.  S.  &  F.  cut  into  them  at 
Rio  Verde,  and  the  dividends  were  only  a  bluff  for  stock- 
bracing  purposes.  I  surmised  that  an  empty  treasury 
was  what  was  the  matter  when  they  refused  to  join  us 
in  the  veto  affair." 

"That  is  one  way  of  looking  at  it,"  said  the  traffic 
(150) 


THE   MAN   IN   POSSESSION  151 

manager.  "But  some  of  the  papers  are  claiming  that  it 
was  a  legal  hold-up,  pure  and  simple." 

"Nothing  of  the  kind/'  retorted  the  lawyer,  whose  re- 
spect for  the  law  was  as  great  as  his  contempt  for 
the  makers  of  the  laws.  "Judge  MacFarlane  had  no  dis- 
cretion in  the  matter.  Hawk  had  a  perfect  right  to  file 
an  amended  petition,  and  the  judge  was  obliged  to  act 
upon  it.  I'm  not  saying  it  wasn't  a  devilish  sharp  trick 
of  Hawk's.  It  was.  He  saw  a  chance  to  smite  them 
under  the  fifth  rib,  and  he  took  it." 

"But  how  about  his  client:  the  woman  who  was  put 
off  the  train?  Is  she  any  better  off  than  she  was  be- 
fore?" 

"Oh,  she'll  get  her  five  thousand  dollars,  of  course, 
if  they  don't  take  the  case  out  of  court.  It  has  served 
its  turn.  It's  an  ugly  crusher  for  the  Loring  manage- 
ment. Hawk's  allegations  charge  all  sorts  of  crooked- 
ness, and  neither  Loring  nor  Kent  seemed  to  have  a 
word  to  say  for  themselves.  I  understand  Kent  was  in 
court,  either  in  person  or  by  attorney,  when  the  receiver- 
ship order  was  made,  and  that  he  hadn't  a  word  to  say 
for  himself." 

This  view  of  Harnwicke's,  colored  perhaps  by  the 
fact  that  the  Trans- Western  was  a  business  competitor 
of  the  Short  Line,  was  the  generally  accepted  one  in  rail- 
road and  financial  circles  at  the  capital.  Civilization 
apart,  there  is  still  a  deal  of  the  primitive  in  human 


152  THE    GKAFTERS 

nature,  and  wolves  are  not  the  only  creatures  that  are 
prone  to  fall  upon  the  disabled  member  of  the  pack  and 
devour  him. 

But  in  the  State  at  large  the  press  was  discussing  the 
event  from  a  political  point  of  view ;  one  section,  small 
but  vehement,  raising  the  cry  of  trickery  and  judicial 
corruption,  and  prophesying  the  withdrawal  of  all  for- 
eign capital  from  the  State,  while  the  other,  large  and 
complacent,  pointed  eloquently  to  the  beneficent  work- 
ing of  the  law  under  which  the  cause  of  a  poor  woman, 
suing  for  her  undoubted  right,  might  be  made  the  whip 
to  flog  corporate  tyranny  into  instant  subjection. 

As  for  the  dispossessed  stock-holders  in  the  far-away 
East,  they  were  slow  to  take  the  alarm,  and  still  slower 
to  get  concerted  action.  Like  many  of  the  western 
roads,  the  Western  Pacific  had  been  capitalized  largely 
by  popular  subscription;  hence  there  was  no  single 
holder,  or  group  of  holders,  of  sufficient  financial  weight 
to  enter  the  field  against  the  spoilers. 

But  when  Loring  and  his  associates  had  fairly  got 
the  wires  hot  with  the  tale  of  what  had  been  done,  and 
the  much  more  alarming  tale  of  what  was  likely  to  be 
done,  the  Boston  inertness  vanished.  A  pool  of  the  stock 
was  formed,  with  the  members  of  the  Advisory  Board 
as  a  nucleus ;  money  was  subscribed,  and  no  less  a  legal 
light  than  an  ex-attorney-general  of  the  state  of  Massa- 
chusetts was  despatched  to  the  seat  of  war  to  advise 


THE   MAN   IN   POSSESSION 


with  the  men  on  the  ground.  None  the  less,  disaster 
out-travels  the  swiftest  of  "limited"  trains.  Before  the 
heavily-feed  consulting  attorney  had  crossed  the  Hud- 
son in  his  westward  journey,  Wall  Street  had  taken  no- 
tice, and  there  was  a  momentary  splash  in  the  troubled 
pool  of  the  Stock  Exchange  and  a  vanishing  circle  of 
ripples  to  show  where  Western  Pacific  had  gone  down. 

In  the  meantime  Major  James  Guilford,  somewhile 
president  of  the  Apache  National  Bank  of  Gaston,  and 
antecedent  to  that  the  frowning  autocrat  of  a  twenty- 
five-mile  logging  road  in  the  North  Carolina  mountains, 
had  given  bond  in  some  sort  and  had  taken  possession 
of  the  company's  property  and  of  the  offices  in  the  Quin- 
tard  Building. 

His  first  official  act  as  receiver  was  to  ask  for  the 
resignations  of  a  dozen  heads  of  departments,  beginning 
with  the  general  manager  and  pausing  for  the  moment 
with  the  supervisor  of  track.  That  done,  he  filled  the 
vacancies  with  political  troughsmen;  and  with  these  as, 
assistant  decapitators  the  major  passed  rapidly  down  the 
line,  striking  off  heads  in  daily  batches  until  the  over- 
flow of  the  Bucks  political  following  was  provided  for 
on  the  railroad's  pay-rolls  to  the  wife's  cousin's  nephew. 

This  was  the  work  of  the  first  few  administrative  days 
or  weeks,  and  while  it  was  going  on,  the  business  atti- 
tude of  the  road  remained  unchanged.  But  once  seated 
firmly  in  the  saddle,  with  his  awkward  squad  well  in 


154  THE   GRAFTERS 

hand,  the  major  proceeded  to  throw  a  bomb  of  conster- 
nation into  the  camp  of  his  competitors. 

Kent  was  dining  with  Ormsby  in  the  grill-room  of 
the  Camelot  Club  when  the  waiter  brought  in  the  even- 
ing edition  of  the  Argus,  whose  railroad  reporter  had 
heard  the  preliminary  fizzing  of  the  bomb  fuse.  The 
story  was  set  out  on  the  first  page,  first  column,  with  ap-» 
propriate  headlines. 

WAE  TO  THE  KNIFE  AND  THE  KNIFE 
TO  THE  HILT! 

TRANS-WESTERN    CUTS    COMMODITY    RATE. 

Great  Excitement  in  Eailroad  Circles.     Receiver 
Guilford's  Hold-up. 

Kent  ran  his  eye  rapidly  down  the  column  and  passed 
the  paper  across  to  Ormsby. 

"I  told  you  so,"  he  said.  "They  didn't  find  the  road 
insolvent,  but  they  are  going  to  make  it  so  in  the  short- 
est possible  order.  A  rate  war  will  do  it  quicker  than 
anything  else  on  earth." 

Ormsby  thrust  out  his  jaw. 

"Have  we  got  to  stand  by  and  see  'em  do  it?" 

"The  man  from  Massachusetts  says  yes,  and  he 
knows,  or  thinks  he  does.  He  has  been  here  two  weeks 


THE   MAN   IN   POSSESSION  155 

now,  and  he  has  nosed  out  for  himself  all  the  dead- 
walls.  We  can't  appeal,  because  there  is  no  decision  to 
appeal  from.  We  can't  take  it  out  of  the  lower  court 
until  it  is  finished  in  the  lower  court.  We  can't  enjoin 
an  officer  of  the  court;  and  there  is  no  authority  in  the 
State  that  will  set  aside  Judge  MacFarlane's  order 
when  that  order  was  made  under  technically  legal  con- 
ditions." 

"Yon  could  have  told  him  all  that  in  the  first  five 
minutes/'  said  Ormsby. 

"I  did  tell  him,  and  was  mildly  sat  upon.  To-day  he 
came  around  and  gave  me  back  my  opinion,  clause  for 
clause,  as  his  own.  But  I  have  no  kick  coming.  Some- 
body will  have  to  be  here  to  fight  the  battle  to  a  finish 
when  the  judge  returns,  and  our  expert  will  advise  the 
Bostonians  to  retain  me." 

"Does  he  stay  ?"  Ormsby  asked. 

"Oh,  no;  he  is  going  back  with  Loring  to-night. 
Loring  has  an  idea  of  his  own  which  may  or  may  not  be 
worth  the  powder  it  will  take  to  explode  it.  He  is  going 
to  beseech  the  Boston  people  to  enlarge  the  pool  until 
it  controls  a  safe  majority  of  the  stock." 

"What  good  will  that  do  ?" 

"None,  directly.  It's  merely  a  safe  preliminary  to  any- 
thing that  may  happen.  I  tell  Loring  he  is  like  all  the 
others :  he  knows  when  he  has  enough  and  is  willing  to 
stand  from  under.  I'm  the  only  fool  in  the  lot." 


156  THE    GKAFTEES 

Ormsby's  smile  was  heartening  and  good  for  sore 
nerves. 

"I  like  your  pluck,  Kent;  I'll  be  hanged  if  I  don't. 
And  I'll  back  you  to  win,  yet." 

Kent  shook  his  head  unhopefully. 

"Don't  mistake  me,"  he  said.  "I  am  fighting  for  the 
pure  love  of  it,  and  not  with  any  great  hope  of  saving 
the  stock-holders.  These  grafters  have  us  by  the  nape  of 
the  neck.  We  can't  make  a  move  till  MacFarlane  comes 
back  and  gives  us  a  hearing  on  the  merits.  That  may 
not  be  till  the  next  term  of  court.  Meanwhile,  the  tem- 
porary receiver  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  perma- 
nent receiver;  and  the  interval  would  suffice  to  wreck 
a  dozen  railroads." 

"And  still  you  won't  give  up  ?" 

"No." 

"I  hope  you  won't  have  to.  But  to  a  man  up  a  tree 
it  looks  very  much  like  a  dead  cock  in  the  pit.  As  I  have 
said,  if  there  is  any  backing  to  do,  I'm  with  you,  first, 
last,  and  all  the  time,  merely  from  a  sportsman's  interest 
in  the  game.  But  is  there  any  use  in  a  little  handful  of 
us  trying  to  buck  up  against  a  whole  state  government  ?" 

The  coffee  had  been  served,  and  Kent  dropped  a  lump 
of  sugar  into  his  cup. 

"Ormsby,  I'll  never  let  go  while  I'm  alive  enough  to 
fight,"  he  said  slowly.  "One  decent  quality  I  have — 


THE   MAN   IN   POSSESSION  157 

and  the  only  one,  perhaps:  I  don't  know  when  I'm 
beaten.  And  I'll  down  this  crowd  of  political  plunderers 
yet,  if  Bucks  doesn't  get  me  sand-bagged." 

His  listener  pushed  back  his  chair. 

"If  you  stood  to  lose  anything  more  than  your  job 
I  could  understand  it,"  he  commented.  "As  it  is,  I 
can't.  Any  way  you  look  at  it,  your  stake  in  the  game 
isn't  worth  the  time  and  effort  it  will  take  to  play  the 
string  out.  And  I  happen  to  know  you're  ambitious  to 
do  things — things  that  count." 

"What  is  it  you  don't  understand — the  motive  ?" 

"Thaf  s  it." 

Kent  laughed. 

"You.  are  not  as  astute  as  Miss  Van  Brock.  She 
pointed  it  out  to  me  last  night — or  thought  she  did — 
in  two  words." 

Ormsby's  eyes  darkened,  and  he  did  not  affect  to  mis- 
understand. 

"It  would  be  a  grand-stand  play,"  he  said  half- 
musingly,  "if  you  should  happen  to  worry  it  through, 
I  mean.  I  believe  Mrs.  Hepzibah  would  be  ready  to  fall 
on  your  neck  and  forgive  you,  and  turn  me  down." 
Then,  half- jestingly :  "Kent,  what  will  you  take  to  drop 
this  thing  permanently  and  go  away  ?" 

David  Kent's  smile  showed  his  teeth. 

"The  one  thing  you  wouldn't  be  willing  to  give.   Ycm 


158  THE    GEAFTEES 

asked  me  once  when  we  had  fallen  over  the  fence  upon 
this  forbidden  ground  if  I  were  satisfied,  and  I  told  you 
I  wasn't.  Do  we  understand  each  other  ?" 

"I  guess  so/'  said  Onnsby.  "But —  Say,  Kent,  I 
like  you  too  well  to  see  you  go  up  against  a  stone  fence 
blindfolded.  I'm  like  Guilf ord :  I  am  the  man  in  pos- 
session. And  possession  is  nine  points  of  the  law." 

Kent  rose  and  took  the  proffered  cigar  from  Onnsby's 
case. 

"It  depends  a  good  bit  upon  how  the  possession  is 
gained — and  held — doesn't  it?"  he  rejoined  coolly. 
"And  your  figure  is  unfortunate  in  its  other  half.  I 
am  going  to  beat  Guilfard." 


XIII 

THE  WRECKERS 

Just  why  Eeceiver  Guilford,  an  officer  of  the  court 
who  was  supposed  to  be  nursing  an  insolvent  railroad  to 
the  end  that  its  creditors  might  not  lose  all,  should  be- 
gin by  declaring  war  on  the  road's  revenue,  was  a  ques- 
tion which  the  managers  of  competing  lines  strove  vainly 
to  answer.  But  when,  in  defiance  of  all  precedent,  he 
made  the  cut  rates  effective  to  and  from  all  local  sta- 
tions on  the  Trans- Western,  giving  the  shippers  at  in- 
termediate and  non-competitive  points  the  full  benefit 
of  the  reductions,  the  railroad  colony  denounced  him  as 
a  madman  and  gave  him  a  month  in  which  to  find  the 
bottom  of  a  presumably  empty  treasury. 

But  the  event  proved  that  the  major's  madness  was 
not  altogether  without  method.  It  is  an  axiom  in  the 
carrying  trade  that  low  rates  make  business;  create  it, 
so  to  speak,  out  of  nothing.  Given  an  abundant  crop, 
low  prices,  and  high  freight  rates  in  the  great  cereal 
belt,  and,  be  the  farmers  never  so  poor,  much  of  the 
(159) 


160  THE    GKAFTEKS 

grain  will  be  stored  and  held  against  the  chance  of  bet- 
ter conditions. 

So  it  came  about  that  Major  Guilford's  relief  measure 
was  timed  to  a  nicety,  and  the  blanket  cut  in  rates 
opened  a  veritable  flood-gate  for  business  in  Trans- 
Western  territory.  From  the  day  of  its  announcement 
the  traffic  of  the  road  increased  by  leaps  and  bounds. 
Stored  grain  came  out  of  its  hiding  places  at  every 
country  cross-roads  to  beg  for  cars;  stock  feeders  drove 
their  market  cattle  unheard-of  distances,  across  the 
tracks  of  competing  lines,  over  and  around  obstacles  of 
every  sort,  to  pour  them  into  the  loading  corrals  of  the 
Trans-Western. 

Nor  was  the  traffic  all  outgoing.  With  the  easing  of 
the  money  burden,  the  merchants  in  the  tributary  towns 
began  thriftily  to  take  advantage  of  the  low  rates  to  re- 
new their  stocks;  long-deferred  visits  and  business  trips 
suddenly  became  possible;  and  the  saying  that  it  was 
cheaper  to  travel  than  to  stay  at  home  gained  instant 
and  grateful  currency. 

In  a  short  time  the  rolling  stock  of  the  road  was  taxed 
to  its  utmost  capacity,  and  the  newly  appointed  pur- 
chasing agent  was  buying  cars  and  locomotives  right 
and  left.  Also,  to  keep  pace  with  the  ever-increasing 
procession  of  trains,  a  doubled  construction  force 
wrought  night  and  day  installing  new  side  tracks  and 
passing  points. 


THE   WEECKEES  161 

Under  the  fructifying  influence  of  such  a  golden 
shower  of  prosperity,  land  values  began  to  rise  again, 
slowly  at  first,  as  buyers  distrusted  the  continuance  of 
the  golden  shower;  more  rapidly  a  little  later,  as  the 
Guilford  policy  defined  itself  in  terms  of  apparent  per- 
manence. 

Towns  along  the  line — hamlets  long  since  fallen  into 
the  way-station  rut  of  desuetude — awoke  with  a  start, 
bestirring  themselves  joyfully  to  meet  the  inspiriting 
conditions.  At  Midland  City,  Stephen  Hawk,  the  new 
right-of-way  agent,  ventured  to  ask  municipal  help  to 
construct  a  ten-mile  branch  to  Lavabee :  it  was  forthcom- 
ing promptly ;  and  the  mass  meeting,  at  which  the  bond 
loan  was  anticipated  by  public  subscription  shouted  it- 
self hoarse  in  enthusiasm. 

At  Gaston,  where  Hawk  asked  for  a  donation  of  land 
whereon  the  company  might  build  the  long-promised 
division  repair-shops,  people  fought  with  one  another 
to  be  first  among  the  donors.  And  at  Juniberg,  where 
the  company  proposed  to  establish  the  first  of  a  series 
of  grain  subtreasuries — warehouses  in  which  the  farm- 
ers of  the  surrounding  country  could  store  their  prod- 
ucts and  borrow  money  on  them  from  the  railroad 
company  at  the  rate  of  three  per  cent,  per  annum — at 
Juniberg  enough  money  was  subscribed  to  erect  three 
such  depots  as  the  heaviest  tributary  crop  could  possibly 
fill. 


162  THE    GKAFTERS 

It  was  while  the  pendulum  of  prosperity  was  in  full 
swing  that  David  Kent  took  a  day  off  from  sweating 
over  his  problem  of  ousting  the  receiver  and  ran  down 
to  Gaston.  Single-eyed  as  he  was  in  the  pursuit  of  jus- 
tice, he  was  not  unmindful  of  the  six  lots  standing  in 
his  name  in  the  Gaston  suburb,  and  from  all  accounts 
the  time  was  come  to  dispose  of  them. 

He  made  the  journey  in  daylight,  with  his  eyes  wide 
open  and  the  mental  pencil  busy  at  work  noting  the 
changes  upon  which  the  State  press  had  been  dilating 
daily,  but  which  he  was  now  seeing  for  the  first  time. 
They  were  incontestable — and  wonderful.  He  admitted 
the  fact  without  prejudice  to  a  settled  conviction  that 
the  sun-burst  of  prosperity  was  merely  another  brief 
period  of  bubble-blowing.  Towns  whose  streets  had  been 
grass-grown  since  the  day  when  each  in  turn  had  sur- 
rendered its  right  to  be  called  the  terminus  of  the  west- 
ward-building railroad,  were  springing  into  new  life. 
The  song  of  the  circular  saw,  the  bee-boom  of  the  plan- 
ing-mill  and  the  tapping  of  hammers  were  heard  in  the 
land,  and  the  wayside  hamlets  were  dotted  with  new 
roofs.  And  Gaston — 

But  Gaston  deserved  a  separate  paragraph  in  the  men- 
tal note-book,  and  Kent  accorded  it,  marveling  still 
more.  It  was  as  if  the  strenuous  onrush  of  the  climax- 
ing Year  Three  had  never  been  interrupted.  The  ma- 


THE   WRECKERS  163 

terial  for  the  new  company  shops  was  arriving  by  train- 
loads,  and  an  army  of  men  was  at  work  clearing  the 
grounds.  On  a  siding  near  the  station  a  huge  grain  ele- 
vator was  rising.  In  the  streets  the  hustling  activity  of 
the  "terminus"  period  was  once  more  in  full  swing ;  and 
at  the  Mid-Continent  Kent  had  some  little  difficulty  in 
securing  a  room. 

He  was  smoking  his  after-dinner  cigar  in  the  lobby  of 
the  hotel  and  trying  as  he  might  to  orient  himself  when 
Blashfield  Hunnicott  drifted  in.  Kent  gave  the  some- 
time local  attorney  a  cigar,  made  room  for  him  on  the 
plush-covered  settee,  and  proceeded  to  pump  him  dry  of 
Gaston  news.  Summed  up,  the  inquiries  pointed  them- 
selves thus :  was  there  any  basis  for  the  Gaston  revival 
other  than  the  lately  changed  attitude  of  the  railroad? 
In  other  words,  if  the  cut  rates  should  be  withdrawn 
and  the  railroad  activities  cease,  would  there  not  be  a 
second  and  still  more  disastrous  collapse  of  the  Gaston 
bubble? 

Pressed  hardly,  Hunnicott  admitted  the  probability; 
given  another  turn,  the  screw  of  inquiry  squeezed  out 
an  admission  of  the  fact,  slurred  over  by  the  revivalist, 
that  the  railway  company's  treasury  was  really  the  alms- 
box  into  which  all  hands  were  dipping. 

"One  more  question  and  I'll  let  up  on  you,"  said 
Kent.  "It  used  to  be  said  of  you  in  the  flush  times  that 


164  THE   GRAFTERS 

you  kept  tab  on  the  real  estate  transfers  when  everybody 
else  was  too  busy  to  read  the  record.  Do  you  still  do 
it?" 

Hunnicott  laughed  uneasily. 

"Rather  more  than  ever  just  now,  as  you'd  imagine." 

"It  is  well.  Now  you  know  the  members  of  the  old 
gang,  from  his  Excellency  down.  Tell  me  one  thing: 
are  they  buying  or  selling  ?" 

Hunnicott  sprang  up  and  slapped  his  leg. 

"By  Jupiter,  Kent !  They  are  selling — every  last  man 
of  them!" 

"Precisely.  And  when  they  have  sold  all  they  have  to 
sell?" 

"They'll  turn  us  loose — drop  us — quit  booming  the 
town,  if  your  theory  is  the  right  one.  But  say,  Kent, 
I  can't  believe  it,  you  know.  It's  too  big  a  thing  to  be 
credited  to  Jim  Guilford  and  his  handful  of  subs  in  the 
railroad  office.  Why,  if  s  all  along  the  line,  everywhere." 

"I'm  telling  you  that  Guilford  isn't  the  man.  He  is 
only  a  cog  in  the  wheel.  There  is  a  bigger  mind  than 
his  behind  it." 

"I  can't  help  it,"  Hunnicott  protested.  "I  don't  be- 
lieve that  any  man  or  clique  could  bring  this  thing  about 
unless  we  were  really  on  the  upturn." 

"Very  good ;  believe  what  you  please,  but  do  as  I  tell 
you.  Sell  every  foot  of  Gaston  dirt  that  stands  in 
your  name;  and  while  you  are  about  it,  sell  those  six 


THE    WEECKEKS  165 

lots  for  me  in  Subdivision  Five.  More  than  that,  do  it 
pretty  soon/' 

Hunnicott  promised,  in  the  brokerage  affair,  at  least. 
Then  he  switched  the  talk  to  the  receivership. 

"Still  up  in  the  air,  are  you,  in  the  railroad  graft 
case  ?" 

Kent  nodded. 

"No  news  of  MacFarlane  ?" 

"Plenty  of  it.  His  health  is  still  precarious,  and  will 
likely  remain  so  until  the  spoilsmen  have  picked  the 
skeleton  clean." 

Hunnicott  was  silent  for  a  full  minute.  Then  he  said : 

"Say,  Kent,  hasn't  it  occurred  to  you  that  they  are 
rather  putting  meat  on  the  bones  instead  of  taking  it 
off  ?  Their  bills  for  betterments  must  be  out  of  sight." 

It  had  occurred  to  Kent,  but  he  gave  his  own  explana- 
tion of  Major  Guilford's  policy  in  a  terse  sentence. 

"It  is  a  part  of  the  bluff ;  fattening  the  thing  a  little 
before  they  barbecue  it." 

"I  suppose  so.  It's  a  pity  we  don't  live  a  little  far- 
ther back  in  the  history  of  the  world:  say  at  a  time 
when  we  could  hire  MacFarlane's  doctor  to  obliterate 
the  judge,  and  no  questions  asked." 

Who  can  explain  how  it  is  that  some  jesting  word, 
trivial  and  purposeless  it  may  be,  will  fire  a  hidden  train 
of  thought  which  was  waiting  only  for  some  chance 
Bpark  ?  "Obliterate  the  judge,"  said  Hunnicott  in  grim 


166  THE    GEAFTEES 

jest ;  and  straightway  Kent  saw  possibilities ;  saw  a  thing 
to  be  done,  though  not  yet  the  manner  of  its  doing. 

"If  you'll  excuse  me,"  he  said  abruptly  to  his  com- 
panion, "I  believe  I'll  try  to  catch  the  Flyer  back  to  the 
capital.  I  came  down  to  see  about  selling  those  lots  of 
mine,  but  if  you  will  undertake  it  for  me — " 

"Of  course,"  said  Hunnicott;  "I'll  be  only  too  glad. 
You've  ten  minutes :  can  you  make  it  ?" 

Kent  guessed  so,  and  made  the  guess  a  certainty  with 
two  minutes  to  spare.  The  through  sleeper  was  lightly 
loaded,  and  he  picked  out  the  most  unneighbored  sec- 
tion of  the  twelve,  being  wishful  only  for  undisturbed 
thinking  ground.  But  before  the  train  had  swung  past 
the  suburb  lights  of  Gaston,  the  smoker's  unrest  seized 
him  and  the  thought-wheels  demanded  tobacco.  Kent 
fought  it  as  long  as  he  could,  making  sure  that  the 
smoking-compartment  liars'  club  would  be  in  session; 
but  when  the  demand  became  a  nagging  insistence,  he 
found  his  pipe  and  tobacco  and  went  to  the  men's  room. 

The  little  den  behind  the  drawing-room  had  but  one 
occupant  besides  the  rear-end  brakeman — a  tall,  satur- 
nine man  in  a  gray  grass-cloth  duster  who  was  smoking  a 
Porto  Eican  stogie.  Kent  took  a  second  look  and  held 
out  his  hand. 

"This  is  an  unexpected  pleasure,  Judge  Marston.  I 
was  counting  on  three  hours  of  solitary  confinement." 

The  lieutenant-governor  acknowledged  the  hand-clasp, 


THE   WEECKERS  167 

nodded,  and  made  room  on  the  leather-covered  divan  for 
the  new-comer.  Hildreth,  the  editor  of  the  Argus,  put 
it  aptly  when  he  said  that  the  grim-faced  old  cattle  king 
had  "blown"  into  politics.  He  was  a  compromise  on  the 
People's  Party  ticket;  was  no  part  of  the  Bucks  pro- 

* 

gramme,  and  had  been  made  to  feel  it.  Tradition  had  it 
that  he  had  been  a  terror  to  the  armed  and  organized 
cattle  thieves  of  the  early  days ;  hence  the  brevet  title  of 
"Judge."  But  those  that  knew  him  best  did  not  know 
that  he  had  once  been  the  brightest  man  upon  the  Su- 
preme Bench  of  his  native  state:  this  before  failing 
health  had  driven  him  into  exile. 

As  a  mixer,  the  capital  had  long  since  voted  Oliver 
Marston  a  conspicuous  failure.  A  reticent,  reserved  man 
by  temperament  and  habit,  and  with  both  temperament 
and  habit  confirmed  by  his  long  exile  on  the  cattle 
ranges,  he  had  grown  rather  less  than  more  talkative 
after  his  latest  plunge  into  public  life;  and  even  Miss 
Van  Brock  confessed  that  she  found  him  impossible  on 
the  social  side.  None  the  less,  Kent  had  felt  drawn  to- 
ward him  from  the  first;  partly  because  Marston  was  a 
good  man  in  bad  company,  and  partly  because  there  was 
something  remindful  of  the  elder  Kent  in  the  strong 
face,  the  slow  smile  and  the  introspective  eye  of  the  old 
man  from  the  hill  country. 

For  a  time  the  talk  was  a  desultory  monologue,  with 
Kent  doing  his  best  to  keep  it  from  dying  outright. 


168  THE    GEAFTERS 

Later,  when  he  was  fairly  driven  in  upon  his  reserves,  he 
began  to  speak  of  himself,  and  of  the  hopeless  fight  for 
enlargement  in  the  Trans- Western  struggle.  Marston 
lighted  the  match-devouring  stogie  for  the  twentieth 
time,  squared  himself  on  the  end  of  the  divan  and  list- 
ened attentively.  At  the  end  of  the  recounting  he  said: 

"It  seems  to  be  a  failure  of  justice,  Mr.  Kent.  Can 
you  prove  your  postulate  ?" 

"I  can.  With  fifteen  minutes  more  on  the  day  of  the 
preliminary  hearing  I  should  have  shown  it  to  any  one's 
satisfaction." 

Marston  went  into  a  brown  study  with  his  eyes  fixed 
upon  the  stamped-leather  devil  in  the  panel  at  the  oppo- 
site end  of  the  compartment.  When  he  spoke  again, 
Kent  wondered  at  the  legal  verbiage,  and  still  more  at 
the  clear-cut,  judicial  opinion. 

"The  facts  in  the  case,  as  you  state  them,  point  to  ju- 
dicial connivance,  and  we  should  always  be  slow  to 
charge  that,  Mr.  Kent.  Technically,  the  court  was  not 
at  fault.  Due  notice  was  served  on  the  company's  attor- 
ney of  record,  and  you  admit,  yourself,  that  the  delay, 
short  as  it  was,  would  have  been  sufficient  if  you  had  not 
been  accidentally  detained.  And,  since  there  were  no 
contravening  affidavits  submitted,  Judge  MacFarlane 
was  technically  warranted  in  granting  the  prayer  for  a 
temporary  receiver." 

"I'm  not  trying  to  refute  that,"  said  Kent.     "But 


THE   WEECKEES  169 

afterward,  when  I  called  upon  the  judge  with  the  evi- 
dence in  hand — " 

"He  was  under  no  absolute  obligation  to  retry  the  case 
out  of  court,  as  you  know,  Mr.  Kent.  Neither  was  he 
obliged  to  give  you  an  unofficial  notice  of  the  day  upon 
which  he  would  hear  your  motion  for  the  discharge  of 
the  receiver  and  the  vacation  of  his  order  appointing 
him." 

'Tinder  no  absolute  legal  obligation,  perhaps,"  re- 
torted Kent.  "But  the  moral  obligation — " 

"We  are  coming  to  that.  I  have  been  giving  you  what 
would  probably  be  a  minority  opinion  of  an  appellate 
court,  if  you  could  take  an  appeal.  The  majority  opin- 
ion might  take  higher  ground,  pointing  to  the  manifest 
injustice  done  to  the  defendant  company  by  the  short- 
ness of  the  delay  granted;  by  Judge  MacFarlane's  re- 
fusal to  continue  the  hearing  for  one  hour,  though  your 
attorney  was  present  and  pleading  for  the  same;  and 
lastly  for  the  indefinite  postponement  of  the  hearing  on 
the  merits  on  insufficient  grounds,  since  the  judge  was 
not  at  the  time,  and  has  not  since  been,  too  ill  to  attend 
to  the  routine  duties  of  his  office." 

Kent  looked  up  quickly. 

"Judge  Marston,  do  you  know  that  last  assertion  to 
be  true  ?"  he  demanded. 

The  slow  smile  came  and  went  in  the  introspective 
eyes  of  the  older  man. 


170  THE    GRAFTERS 

"I  have  been  giving  you  the  opinion  of  the  higher 
court/*  he  said,  with  his  nearest  approach  to  jocoseness. 
"It  is  based  upon  the  supposition  that  your  allegations 
would  be  supported  by  evidence." 

Kent  smoked  on  in  silence  while  the  train  measured 
the  rail-lengths  'between  two  of  the  isolated  prairie  sta- 
tions. When  he  spoke  again  there  was  honest  deference 
in  his  manner. 

"Mr.  Marston,  you  have  a  far  better  right  to  your 
courtesy  title  of  'Judge'  than  that  given  by  the  Great 
American  Title  Company,  Unlimited/'  he  said.  "Will 
you  advise  me  ?" 

"As  plain  Oliver  Marston,  and  a  man  old  enough  to 
be  your  father,  yes.  What  have  you  been  doing?  Try- 
ing to  oust  the  receiver,  I  suppose." 

<fYes ;  trying  to  find  some  technical  flaw  by  which  he 
could  be  ousted." 

"It  can't  be  done.  You  must  strike  higher.  Are  you 
fully  convinced  of  Judge  MacFarlane's  venality?" 

"As  fully  as  I  can  be  without  having  seen  with  my 
own  eyes  and  heard  with  my  own  ears." 

Marston  opened  his  watch  and  looked  at  it.  Then  he 
lighted  another  of  the  villainous  little  cigars. 

"We  have  an  hour  yet,"  he  said.  "You  have  been  giv- 
ing me  the  legal  points  in  the  case :  now  give  me  the  in- 
ferences— all  of  them." 

Kent  laughed. 


THE   WEECKEES  171 

"I'm  afraid  I  sha'n't  be  able  to  forget  the  lieutenant- 
governor.  I  shall  have  to  call  some  pretty  hard  names." 

"Call  them/'  said  his  companion,  briefly;  and  Kent 
went  deep  into  the  details,  beginning  with  the  formation 
of  the  political  gang  in  Gaston  the  dismantled. 

The  listener  in  the  gray  dust-coat  heard  him  through 
without  comment.  When  Kent  reached  the  end  of  the 
inferences,  telling  the  truth  without  scruple  and  letting 
the  charge  of  political  and  judicial  corruption  lie  where 
it  would,  the  engineer  was  whistling  for  the  capital. 

"You  have  told  me  some  things  I  knew,  and  some 
others  that  I  only  suspected,"  was  all  the  answer  he  got 
until  the  train  was  slowing  into  the  Union  Station. 
Then  as  he  flung  away  the  stump  of  the  little  cigar  the 
silent  one  added :  "If  I  were  in  your  place,  Mr.  Kent, 
I  believe  I  should  take  a  supplementary  course  of  read- 
ing in  the  State  law." 

"In  what  particular  part  of  it?"  said  Kent,  keen, 
anxiety  in  every  word. 

"In  that  part  of  the  fundamental  law  which  relates 
to  the  election  of  circuit  judges,  let  us  say.  If  I  had 
your  case  to  fight,  I  should  try  to  obliterate  Judge  Mac- 
Farlane." 

Kent  had  but  a  moment  in  which  to  remark  the  cu- 
rious coincidence  in  the  use  of  precisely  the  same  word 
by  both  Hunnicott  and  his  present  adviser. 

"But,  my  dear  sir !  we  should  gain  nothing  by  Mac- 


172  THE    GKAFTEES 

Farlane's  removal  when  his  successor  would  be  appointed 
by  the  executive !" 

Marston  turned  in  the  doorway  of  the  smoking-com- 
partment  and  laid  a  fatherly  hand  on  the  younger  man's 
shoulder. 

"My  boy,  I  didn't  say  'remove';  I  said  'obliterate'. 
Good  night." 


XIV 

THE  GERRYMANDER 

With  Judge  Marston's  hint  partly  to  point  the  way, 
Kent  was  no  long  time  in  getting  at  work  on  the  new 
lead. 

Having  been  at  the  time  a  practitioner  in  one  of  the 
counties  affected,  he  knew  the  political  deal  by  which 
MacFarlane  had  been  elected.  Briefly  described,  it  was 
a  swapping  of  horses  in  midstream.  In  the  preliminary 
canvass  it  was  discovered  that  in  all  probability  Judge 
MacFarlane's  district,  as  constituted,  would  not  reeled; 
him.  But  the  adjoining  district  was  strong  enough  to 
spare  a  county  without  loss  to  the  party;  and  that 
county  added  to  MacFarlane's  voting  strength  would  tip 
the  scale  in  his  favor.  The  Assembly  was  in  session, 
and  the  remedy  was  applied  in  the  shape  of  a  bill  read- 
justing the  district  lines  to  fit  the  political  necessity. 

While  this  bill  was  still  in  the  lower  house  an  obsta- 
cle presented  itself  in  the  form  of  a  vigorous  protest 
(173) 


174  THE    GRAFTEES 

from  Judge  Whitcomb,  whose  district  was  the  one  to 
suffer  loss.  The  county  in  question  was  a  prosperous 
one,  and  the  court  fees — which  a  compliant  clerk  might 
secretly  divide  with  the  judge  appointing  him — were 
large :  wherefore  Whitcomb  threatened  political  reprisals 
if  Kiowa  County  should  be  taken  away  from  him.  The 
outcome  was  a  compromise.  For  elective  purposes  the 
two  districts  were  gerrymandered  as  the  bill  proposed; 
but  it  was  expressly  provided  that  the  transferred  county 
should  remain  judicially  in  Whitcomb's  district  until 
the  expiration  of  Whitcomb's  term  of  office. 

Having  refreshed  his  memory  as  to  the  facts,  Kent 
spent  a  forenoon  in  .the  State  library.  He  stayed  on 
past  the  luncheon  hour,  feeding  on  a  dry  diet  of  Di- 
gests ;  and  it  was  not  until  hunger  began  to  sharpen  his 
faculties  that  he  thought  of  going  back  of  the  statutory 
law  to  the  fountain-head  in  the  constitution  of  the 
State.  Here,  after  he  had  read  carefully  section  by  sec- 
tion almost  through  the  entire  instrument,  his  eye 
lighted  upon  a  clause  which  gradually  grew  luminous 
as  he  read  and  re-read  it. 

"That  is  what  Marston  meant;  it  must  be  what  he 
meant,"  he  mused;  and  returning  the  book  to  its  niche 
in  the  alcove  he  sat  down  to  put  his  face  in  his  hands 
and  sum  up  the  status  in  logical  sequence. 

The  conclusion  must  have  been  convincing,  since  he 
presently  sprang  up  and  left  the  room  quickly  to  have 


THE    GERRYMANDER  175 

himself  shot  down  the  elevator  shaft  to  the  street  level. 
The  telegraph  office  in  the  capitol  was  closed,  but  there 
was  another  in  the  Hotel  Brunswick,  two  squares  dis- 
tant, and  thither  he  went. 

"Hold  the  pool  in  fighting  trim  at  all  hazards. 
Think  I  have  found  weak  link  in  the  chain/'  was  his 
wire  to  Loring,  at  Boston;  and  having  sent  it,  he  went 
around  to  Cassatti's  and  astonished  the  waiter  by  order- 
ing a  hearty  luncheon  at  half-past  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon. 

It  was  late  in  the  evening  before  he  left  the  tiny  of- 
fice on  the  fifth  floor  of  the  Quintard  Building  where 
one  of  his  former  stenographers  had  set  up  in  business 
for  herself.  Since  five  o'clock  the  young  woman  had 
been  steadily  driving  the  type-writer  to  Kent's  dictation. 
When  the  final  sheet  came  out  with  a  whirring  rasp  of 
the  ratchet,  he  suddenly  remembered  that  he  had  prom- 
ised Miss  Van  Brock  to  dine  with  her.  It  was  too  late 
for  the  dinner,  but  not  too  late  to  go  and  apologize,  and 
he  did  the  thing  that  he  could,  stopping  at  his  rooms  on 
the  way  to  dress  while  his  cab-driver  waited. 

He  found  Portia  alone,  for  which  he  was  glad;  but 
her  greeting  was  distinctly  accusative. 

"If  I  should  pretend  to  be  deeply  offended  and  tell 
Thomas  to  show  you  the  door,  what  could  you  say  for 
yourself  ?"  she  began,  before  he  could  say  a  word  in  ex- 
culpation. 


176  THE    GEAFTEKS 

"I  should  say  every  sort  of  excuseful  thing  I  could 
think  of,  knowing  very  well  that  the  most  ingenious  lie 
would  fall  far  short  of  atoning  for  the  offense,"  he  re- 
plied humbly. 

"Possibly  it  would  be  better  to  tell  the  truth — had 
you  thought  of  that?"  she  suggested,  quite  without 
malice. 

"Yes,  I  had;  and  I  shall,  if  you'll  let  me  begin  back 
a  bit."  He  drew  up  a  chair  to  face  her  and  sat  on  the 
edge  of  it.  "You  know  I  told  you  I  was  going  to  Gaston 
to  sell  my  six  lots  while  Major  Guilford's  little  boom  is 
on?" 

"I'm  trying  to  remember :  go  on." 

"Well,  I  went  yesterday  morning  and  returned  late 
last  night.  Do  you  know,  it's  positively  marvelous !" 

"Which — the  six  lots,  the  boom,  or  the  celerity  of 
your  movements?"  she  asked,  with  a  simulation  of  the 
deepest  interest. 

"All  three,  if  you  please ;  but  I  meant  the  miraculous 
revival  of  things  along  the  Trans- Western.  But  that  is 
neither  here  nor  there — " 

"I  think  it  is  very  much  here  and  there,"  she  inter- 
rupted. 

"I  see  you  don't  want  me  to  tell  the  truth — the  whole 
truth ;  but  I  am  determined.  The  first  man  I  met  after 
dinner  was  Hunnicott,  and  when  I  had  made  him  my 
broker  in  the  real  estate  affair  we  fell  to  talking  about 


THE    GEKKYMANDEK  177 

the  railroad  steal.  Speaking  of  MacFarlane's  continued 
absence,  Hunnicott  said,  jokingly,  that  it  was  a  pity  we 
couldn't  go  back  to  the  methods  of  a  few  hundred  years 
ago  and  hire  the  Hot  Springs  doctor  to  'obliterate'  him. 
The  word  stuck  in  my  mind,  and  I  broke  away  and 
took  the  train  chiefly  to  have  a  chance  to  think  out  the 
new  line.  In  the  smoking-room  of  the  sleeper  I  found 
— whom,  do  you  suppose  ?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know:  Judge  MacFarlane,  perhaps, 
coming  back  to  give  you  a  chance  to  poison  him  at  short 
range  ?" 

"No ;  it  was  Marston." 

"And  he  talked  so  long  and  so  fast  that  you  couldn't 
get  here  in  time  for  dinner  this  evening?  That  would 
be  the  most  picturesque  of  the  little  fictions  you  spoke 
of." 

Kent  laughed. 

"For  the  first  hour  he  wouldn't  talk  at  all;  just 
sat  there  wooden-faced,  smoking  vile  little  cigars  that 
made  me  think  I  was  getting  hay-fever.  But  I  wouldn't 
give  up;  and  after  I  had  worn  out  all  the  common- 
places I  began  on  the  Trans- Western  muddle.  At  that 
he  woke  up  all  at  once,  and  before  I  knew  it  he  was 
giving  me  an  expert  legal  opinion  on  the  case;  meaty 
and  sound  and  judicial.  Miss  Van  Brock,  that  man  is  a 
lawyer,  and  an  exceedingly  able  one,  at  that." 

"Of  course,"  she  said  coolly.     "He  was  one  of  the 


178  THE    GEAFTERS 

justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  his  own  state  at  forty- 
two  :  that  was  before  he  had  to  come  West  for  his  health. 
I  found  that  out  a  long  time  ago." 

"And  you  never  told  me !"  said  Kent,  reproachfully. 
''Well,  no  matter;  I  found  out  for  myself  that  he  is  a 
man  to  tie  to.  After  we  had  canvassed  the  purely  legal 
side  of  the  affair,  he  wanted  to  know  more,  and  I  went 
in  for  the  details,  telling  him  all  the  inferences  which 
involve  Bucks,  Meigs,  Hendricks,  MacFarlane  and  the 
lot  of  them." 

Miss  Portia's  eyes  were  flashing. 

"Good,  good,  good !"  she  said.  "David,  I'm  proud  of 
you.  That  took  courage — heaps  of  it." 

"I  did  have  to  forget  pretty  hard  that  he  was  the 
lieutenant-governor  and  nominally  one  of  the  gang. 
But  if  he  is  not  with  us,  neither  is  he  against  us.  He 
took  it  all  in  quietly,  and  when  I  was  through,  he  said : 
Tou  have  told  me  some  things  that  I  knew,  and  some 
others  that  I  only  suspected.' " 

"Was  that  all  ?"  asked  Miss  Van  Brock,  eagerly. 

"No;  I  took  a  good  long  breath  and  asked  his  advice." 

"Did  he  give  it?" 

"He  did.  He  said  in  sober  earnest  just  what  Hunni- 
cott  had  said  in  a  joke :  'If  I  had  your  case  to  fight,  I 
should  try  to  obliterate  Judge  MacFarlane.'  I  began  to 
say  that  MacFarlane's  removal  wouldn't  help  us  so  long 
as  Bucks  has  the  appointing  of  his  successor,  and  then 


THE    GEKKYMAKDEK  179 

he  turned  on  me  and  hammered  it  in  with  a  last  word 
just  as  we  were  leaving  the  train :  'I  didn't  say  remove ; 
I  said  obliterate/  I  caught  on,  after  so  long  a  time,  and 
I've  been  hard  at  work  ever  since." 

"You  are  obliterating  me,"  said  Miss  Portia.  "I 
haven't  the  slightest  idea  what  it  is  all  about." 

"It's  easy  from  this  on,"  said  Kent,  consolingly.  "You 
know  how  MacFarlane  secured  his  reelection?" 

"Everybody  knows  that." 

"Well,  to  cut  a  long  story  short,  the  gerrymander  deal 
won't  stand  the  light.  The  constitution  says — " 

"Oh,  please  don't  quote  law  books  at  me.  Put  it  in 
English — woman-English,  if  you  can." 

"I  will.  The  special  act  of  the  Assembly  is  void; 
therefore  there  was  no  legal  election,  and,  by  conse- 
quence, there  is  no  judge  and  no  receiver." 

Miss  Van  Brock  was  silent  for  a  reflective  minute. 
Then  she  said : 

"On  second  thought,  perhaps  you  would  better  tell 
me  what  the  constitution  says,  Mr.  David.  Possibly  I 
could  grasp  it." 

"It  is  in  the  section  on  elections.  It  says :  'All  circuit 
or  district  judges,  and  all  special  judges,  shall  be  elected 
by  the  qualified  voters  of  the  respective  circuits  or  dis- 
tricts in  which  they  are  to  hold  their  court/  Kiowa 
County  was  cut  out  of  Judge  Whitcomb's  circuit  and 
placed  in  Judge  MacFarlane's  for  electoral  purposes 


180  THE   GKAFTEES 

only.  In  all  other  respects  it  remains  a  part  of  Judge 
Whitcomb's  circuit,  and  will  so  continue  until  Whit- 
comb's  term  expires.  Without  the  vote  of  Kiowa,  Mac- 
Farlane  could  not  have  been  elected ;  with  it  he  was  il- 
legally elected,  or,  to  put  it  the  other  way  about,  he  was 
not  elected  at  all.  Since  he  is  not  lawfully  a  judge, 
his  acts  are  void,  among  them  this  appointment  of 
Major  Guilford  as  receiver  for  the  Trans- Western." 

She  was  not  as  enthusiastic  as  he  thought  she  ought 
to  be.  In  the  soil  prepared  for  it  by  the  political  confi- 
dences of  the  winter  there  had  grown  up  a  many-branch- 
ing tree  of  intimacy  between  these  two ;  a  frank,  sexless 
friendship,  as  Kent  would  have  described  it,  in  which  a 
man  who  was  not  very  much  given  to  free  speech  with 
any  one  unburdened  himself,  and  the  woman  made  him 
believe  that  her  quick,  apprehending  sympathy  was  the 
one  thing  needful — as  women  have  done  since  the  world 
began. 

Since  the  looting  of  the  railroad  which  had  taken 
him  out  of  the  steadying  grind  of  regular  work,  Kent 
had  been  the  prey  of  mixed  motives.  From  the  first  he 
had  thrown  himself  heartily  into  the  problem  of  re- 
trieval, but  the  pugnacious  professional  ambition  to 
break  the  power  of  the  machine  had  divided  time  pretty 
equally  with  sentiment.  Elinor  had  said  little  about  the 
vise-nip  of  hardship  which  the  stock-smashing  would 


THE    GERRYMANDER  181 

impose  upon  three  unguardianed  women;  but  Penelope 
had  been  less  reticent.  Wanting  bare  justice  at  the 
hands  of  the  wreckers,  Elinor  would  go  to  her  wedding 
with  Ormsby  as  the  beggar  maid  went  to  King  Co- 
phetua;  and  all  the  loyalty  of  an  unselfish  love  rose  up 
in  Kent  to  make  the  fight  with  the  grafters  a  personal 
duel. 

At  every  step  in  the  hitherto  discouraging  struggle 
Portia  Van  Brock  had  been  his  keen-sighted  adviser, 
prompter,  ally  of  proof.  He  told  himself  now  and  again 
in  a  flush  of  gratitude  that  he  was  coming  to  owe  her 
more  than  he  had  ever  owed  any  woman;  that  where 
other  men,  more — or  less — fortunate,  were  not  denied 
the  joy  of  possession,  he,  the  disappointed  one,  was  find- 
ing a  true  and  loyal  comradeship  next  best,  if  not  quite 
equal  to  the  beatitudes  of  passion. 

In  all  of  which  David  Kent  was  not  entirely  just  to 
himself.  However  much  he  owed  to  Portia — and  the 
debt  was  large — she  was  not  his  only  creditor.  Some- 
thing he  owed  to  the  unsatisfied  love;  more,  perhaps,  to 
the  good  blood  in  his  veins ;  but  most  of  all  to  the  battle 
itself.  For  out  of  the  soul-harrowings  of  endeavor  was 
emerging  a  better  man,  a  stronger  man,  than  any  his 
friends  had  known.  Brutal  as  their  blind  gropings 
were,  the  Flagellants  of  the  Dark  Ages  plied  their  whips 
to  some  dim  purpose.  Natures  there  be  that  rise  only 


182  THE    GEAFTEES 

to  the  occasion ;  and  if  there  be  no  occasion,  no  floggings 
of  adversity  or  bone-wrenchings  upon  the  rack  of  things 
denied,  there  will  be  no  awakening — no  victory. 

David  Kent  was  suffering  in  both  kinds,  and  was  the 
better  man  for  it.  From  looking  forward  to  success  in 
the  narrow  field  of  professional  advancement,  or  in  the 
scarcely  broader  one  of  the  righting  of  one  woman's 
financial  wrongs,  he  was  coming  now  to  crave  it  in  the 
name  of  manhood;  to  burn  with  an  eager  desire  to  see 
justice  done  for  its  own  sake. 

So,  when  he  had  come  to  Portia  with  the  scheme  of 
effacing  Judge  MacFarlane  and  his  receiver  at  one 
shrewd  blow,  the  first  of  the  many  plans  which  held  out 
a  fair  promise  of  success  as  a  reward  for  daring,  he 
was  disappointed  at  her  lack  of  enthusiasm. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  it  ?"  he  demanded,  when  he 
had  given  her  five  full  minutes  for  reflection. 

"I  don't  know,  David/'  she  said  gravely.  "Have  I 
ever  thrown  cold  water  on  any  of  your  schemes  thus 
far?" 

"No,  indeed.  You  have  been  the  loyalest  partizan  a 
man  ever  had,  I  think;  the  only  one  I  have  to  whom  I 
can  talk  freely.  And  I  have  told  you  more  than  I  have 
all  the  others  put  together." 

"I  know  you  have.  And  it  hurts  me  to  pull  back  now 
when  you  want  me  to  push.  But  I  can't  help  it.  Do 
you  believe  in  a  woman's  intuition?" 


THE    GERRYMANDER  183 

"I  suppose  I  do :  all  men  do,  don't  they  ?" 

She  was  tying  little  knots  in  the  fringe  of  the  table 
scarf,  but  the  prophetess-eyes,  as  Penelope  called  them, 
were  not  following  the  deft  intertwinings  of  the  slender 
fingers. 

"You  mean  to  set  about  'obliterating'  Judge  MacFar- 
lane  forthwith  ?"  she  asked. 

"Assuredly.  I  have  been  whipping  the  thing  into 
shape  all  afternoon:  that  is  what  kept  me  from  dining 
with  you." 

"It  involves  some  kind  of  legal  procedure  ?" 

"Yes ;  a  rather  complicated  one." 

"Could  you  explain  it  so  that  I  could  understand  it  ?" 

"I  think  so.  In  the  first  place  the  question  is  raised 
by  means  of  an  information  or  inquiry  called  a  quo  war- 
ranto.  This  is  directed  to  the  receiver,  and  is  a  demand 
to  know  by  what  authority  he  holds.  Is  it  clear  thus 
far?" 

"Pellucidly,"  she  said. 

"In  reply  the  receiver  cites  his  authority,  which  is  the 
order  from  Judge  MacFarlane ;  and  in  oar  turn  we  pro- 
ceed to  show  that  the  authority  does  not  exist — that  the 
judge's  election  was  illegal  and  that  therefore  his  acts 
are  void.  Do  I  make  it  plain  ?" 

"You  make  it  seem  as  though  it  were  impossible  to 
fail.  And  yet  I  know  you  will  fail." 

"How  do  you  know  it  ?" 


184  THE    GEAFTEES 

"Don't  ask  me ;  I  couldn't  begin  to  tell  you  that.  But 
in  some  spiritual  or  mental  looking-glass  I  can  see  you 
coming  to  me  with  the  story  of  that  failure — coming  to 
ask  my  help." 

He  smiled. 

"You  don't  need  to  be  the  prophetess  Penelope  says 
you  are  to  foresee  part  of  that.  I  always  come  to  you 
with  my  woes." 

"Do  you  ? — of tener  than  you  go  to  Miss  Brentwood  ?" 

This  time  his  smile  was  a  mere  tightening  of  the  lips. 

"Yon  do  love  to  grind  me  on  that  side,  don't  you?" 
he  said.  "I  and  my  affairs  are  less  than  nothing  to  Miss 
Brentwood,  and  no  one  knows  it  any  better  than  you  do." 

"But  you  want  to  go  to  her,"  she  persisted.  "I  am 
only  the  alternative." 

He  looked  her  full  in  the  eyes. 

"Miss  Van  Brock,  what  is  it  you  want  me  to  say? 
What  can  I  say  more  than  I  said  a  moment  ago — that 
you  are  the  truest  friend  a  man  ever  had  ?" 

The  answering  look  out  of  the  brown  eyes  was  age-old 
in  its  infinite  wisdom. 

"How  little  you  men  know  when  you  think  you  know 
the  most,"  she  said  half -musingly ;  then  she  broke  off 
abruptly.  "Let  us  talk  about  something  else.  If  Major 
Guilford  is  wrecking  the  railroad,  why  is  he  spending  so 
much  money  on  improvements?  Have  you  thought  to 
ask  yourself  that  question  ?" 


THE    GERRYMANDER  185 

/ 

"A  good  many  times,"  he  admitted,  following  her 
promptly  back  to  first  principles. 

"And  you  have  not  found  the  answer  ?" 

"Not  one  that  fully  satisfies  me — no." 

"I've  found  one/' 

"Intuitively  ?"  he  smiled. 

"No;  it's  pure  logic,  this  time.  Do  you  remember 
showing  me  a  letter  that  Mr.  Hunnicott  wrote  you  just 
before  the  explosion — a  letter  in  which  he  repeated  a 
bit  of  gossip  about  Mr.  Semple  Falkland  and  his  mys- 
terious visit  to  Gaston  ?" 

"Yes,  I  remember  it." 

"Do  you  know  who  Mr.  Falkland  is  ?" 

"Who  doesn't?"  he  queried.  "He  has  half  of  Wall 
Street  in  his  clientele." 

"Yes;  but  particularly  he  is  the  advisory  counsel  of 
the  Plantagould  System.  Ever  since  you  showed  me 
that  letter  I  have  been  trying  to  account  for  his  pres- 
ence in  Gaston  on  the  day  before  Judge  MacFarlane's 
spring  term  of  court.  I  should  never  have  found  out 
but  for  Mrs.  Brentwood." 

"Mrs.  Brentwood !" 

Miss  Van  Brock  nodded. 

"Yes;  the  mother  of  my — of  the  young  person  for 
whom  I  am  the  alternative,  is  in  a  peck  of  trouble;  I 
quote  her  verbatim.  She  and  her  two  daughters  hold 
some  three  thousand  shares  of  Western  Pacific  stock.  It 


186  THE    GRAFTEES 

was  purchased  at  fifty-seven,  and  it 'is  now  down  to 
twenty-one." 

"Twenty  and  a  quarter  to-day/'  Kent  corrected. 

"Never  mind  the  fractions.  The  mother  of  the  in- 
comparable— Penelope,  has  heard  that  I  am  a  famous 
business  woman;  a  worthy  understudy  for  Mrs.  Hetty 
Green;  so  she  came  to  me  for  advice.  She  had  a  letter 
from  a  New  York  broker  offering  her  a  fraction  more 
than  the  market  price  for  her  three  thousand  shares  of 
Western  Pacific." 

"Well?"  said  Kent. 

"Meaning  what  did  I  do?  I  did  what  you  did  not 
do — what  you  are  not  doing  even  now;  I  put  two  and 
two  together  in  the  twinkling  of  a  bedstaff.  Why  should 
a  New  York  broker  be  picking  up  outlying  Western  Pa- 
cific at  a  fraction  more  than  the  market  when  the  stock 
is  sinking  every  day  ?  I  was  curious  enough  to  pass  the 
'why*  along  to  a  friend  of  mine  in  Wall  Street." 

"Of  course  he  told  you  all  about  it,"  said  Kent,  in- 
credulously. 

"He  told  me  what  I  needed  to  know.  The  broker  in 
question  is  a  Plantagould  man." 

"Still  I  fail  to  'connect  up/  as  the  linemen  say." 

"Do  you?  Ah,  David,  David!  will  you  leave  it  for  a 
woman  to  point  out  what  you  should  have  suspected  the 
moment  you  read  that  bit  of  gossip  in  Mr.  Hunnicott's 
letter?" 


THE   GERRYMANDER  187 

Her  hand  was  on  the  arm  of  her  chair.  He  covered 
it  with  his  own. 

"I'll  leave  it  for  you,  Portia.  You  are  my  good  angel." 

She  withdrew  the  hand  quickly,  but  there  was  no 
more  than  playful  resentment  in  her  retort. 

"Shame  on  you!"  she  scoffed.  "What  would  Miste 
Brentwood  say?" 

"I  wish  you  would  leave  her  out  of  it,"  he  frowned. 
"You  are  continually  ignoring  the  fact  that  she  has 
promised  to  be  the  wife  of  another  man." 

"And  has  thereby  freed  you  from  all  obligations  of 
loyalty?  Don't  deceive  yourself:  women  are  not  made 
that  way.  Doubtless  she  will  go  on  and  marry  the  other 
man  in  due  season;  but  she  will  never  forgive  you  if 
you  smash  her  ideals.  But  we  were  talking  about  the 
things  you  ought  to  have  guessed.  Fetch  me  the  atlas 
from  the  book-case — lower  shelf;  right-hand  corner; 
that's  it." 

He  did  it;  and  in  further  obedience  opened  the  thin 
quarto  at  the  map  of  the  United  States.  There  were 
heavy  black  lines,  inked  in  with  a  pen,  tracing  out  the 
various  ramifications  of  a  great  railway  system.  The 
nucleus  of  the  system  lay  in  the  middle  West,  but  there 
was  a  growing  network  of  the  black  lines  reaching  out 
toward  the  Pacific.  And  connecting  the  trans-Missis- 
sippi network  with  the  western  was  a  broad  red  line 
paralleling  the  Trans- Western  Railway. 


188  THE    GEAFTEKS 

She  smiled  at  his  sudden  start  of  comprehension. 

"Do  you  begin  to  suspect  things  ?"  she  asked. 

He  nodded  his  head. 

"You  ought  to  be  a  man.  If  you  were,  I  should  never 
give  you  a  moment's  peace  until  you  consented  to  take  a 
partnership  with  me.  It's  as  plain  as  day,  now." 

"Is  it  ?  Then  I  wish  you  would  make  it  appear  so  to 
me.  I  am  not  half  as  subtile  as  you  give  me  credit  for 
being." 

"Yet  you  worked  this  out." 

"That  was  easy  enough ;  after  I  had  seen  Mrs.  Brent- 
wood's  letter,  and  yours  from  Mr.  Hunnicott.  The 
Plantagould  people  want  your  railroad,  and  the  receiver- 
ship is  a  part  of  a  plan  for  acquiring  it.  But  why  is 
Major  Guilford  spending  so  much  money  for  improve- 
ments ?" 

"His  reasons  are  not  far  to  seek  now  that  you  have 
shown  me  where  to  look.  His  instructions  are  to  run 
the  stock  down  so  that  the  Plantagould  can  buy  it  in. 
Cut  rates  and  big  expenditures  will  do  that — have  done 
it.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  doubtless  a  condition  of  the 
deal  that  the  road  shall  be  turned  over  whole  as  to  its 
property  values — there  is  to  be  no  wrecking  in  the  gen- 
eral acceptance  of  the  word.  The  Plantagould  doesn't 
want  a  picked  skeleton." 

Miss  Portia's  eyes  narrowed. 

"It's  a  skilful  bit  of  engineering,  isn't  it?"  she  said. 


THE    GERRYMANDER  189 

"You'd  admire  it  as  artistic  work  yourself  if  your  point 
of  view  were  not  so  hopelessly  personal." 

"You  don't  know  half  the  artistic  skill  of  it  yet,"  he 
went  on.  "Besides  all  these  different  ends  that  are  be- 
ing conserved,  the  gang  is  taking  care  of  its  surplus 
heelers  on  the  pay-rolls  of  the  company.  More  than 
that,  it  is  making  immense  political  capital  for  it- 
self. Everybody  knows  what  the  policy  of  the  road  was 
under  the  old  regime:  'All  the  tariff  the  traffic  will 
stand.'  But  now  a  Bucks  man  has  hold  of  it,  and  liber- 
ality is  the  word.  Every  man  in  Trans-Western  terri- 
tory is  swearing  by  Bucks  and  Guilford.  Ah,  my  dear 
friend,  his  Excellency  the  governor  is  a  truly  great 
man!" 

She  nodded. 

"I've  been  trying  to  impress  you  with  that  fact  all 
along.  The  mistake  you  made  was  in  not  joining  the 
People's  Party  early  in  the  campaign,  David." 

But  Kent  was  following  out  his  own  line  of  thought 
and  putting  it  in  words  as  it  came. 

"Think  of  the  brain-work  it  took  to  bring  all  these 
things  into  line.  There  was  no  hitch,  no  slip,  and  noth 
ing  was  overlooked.  They  picked  their  time,  and  it  was 
a  moment  when  we  were  absolutely  helpless.  I  had  filed 
our  charter,  but  our  local  organization  was  still  incom- 
plete. They  had  their  judge  and  the  needful  case  in  his 
court,  pending  and  ready  for  use  at  the  precise  moment. 


190  THE   GRAFTERS 

They  had  Hawk  on  the  ground,  armed  and  equipped; 
and  they  knew  that  unless  a  miracle  intervened  they 
would  have  nobody  but  an  unprepared  local  attorney  to 
obstruct  them." 

"Is  that  all?"  she  asked. 

"No.  The  finest  bit  of  sculpture  is  on  the  capstone 
of  the  pyramid.  Since  we  have  had  no  hearing  on  the 
merits,  Guilford  is  only  a  temporary  receiver,  subject 
to  discharge  if  the  allegations  in  Hawk's  amended  peti- 
tion are  not  sustained.  After  the  major  has  sufficiently 
smashed  the  stock,  Judge  MacFarlane  will  come  back, 
the  hearing  on  the  merits  will  be  given,  we  shall  doubt- 
less make  our  point,  and  the  road  will  revert  to  the 
stock-holders.  But  by  that  time  enough  of  the  stock 
will  have  changed  hands  on  the  'wreck'  price  to  put  the 
Plantagould  people  safely  in  the  saddle,  and  the  freeze- 
out  will  be  a  fact  accomplished." 

Miss  Van  Brock  drew  a  long  breath  that  was  more 
than  half  a  sigh. 

"You  spoke  the  simple  truth,  David,  when  you  said 
that  his  Excellency  is  a  great  man.  It  seems  utterly 
hopeless  now  that  we  have  cleared  up  all  the  little  mys- 
teries." 

Kent  rose  to  take  his  leave. 

"No ;  that  is  where  they  all  go  out  and  I  stay  in,"  he 
said  cheerfully.  "The  shrewder  he  is,  the  more  credit 


THE    GERRYMANDER  191 

there  will  be  in  making  him  let  go.  And  you  mark  my 
words :  I  am  going  to  make  him  let  go.  Good  night." 

She  had  gone  with  him  to  the  door ;  was  in  the  act  of 
closing  it  behind  him,  when  he  turned  back  for  a  be- 
lated question. 

"By  the  way,  what  did  you  tell  Mrs.  Brentwood  to 
do?" 

"I  told  her  not  to  do  anything  until  she  had  consulted 
you  and  Mr.  Loring  and  Brookes  Ormsby.  Was  that 
right?" 

"Quite  right.  If  it  comes  up  again,  rub  it  in  some 
more.  We'll  save  her  alive  yet,  if  she  will  let  us.  Did 
you  say  I  might  come  to  dinner  to-morrow  evening? 
Thank  you:  you  grow  sweeter  and  more  truly  compas- 
sionate day  by  day.  Good  night  again." 


XV 

THE  JUNKETERS 

When  Eeceiver  Guilford  took  possession  of  the  prop- 
erties, appurtenances  and  appendages  of  the  sequestered 
Trans- Western  Kailway,  one  of  the  luxuries  to  which  he 
fell  heir  was  private  car  "Naught-seven/'  a  commodious 
hotel  on  wheels  originally  used  as  the  directors'  car  of 
the  Western  Pacific,  and  later  taken  over  by  Loring  to 
be  put  in  commission  as  the  general  manager's  special. 

In  the  hands  of  a  friendly  receiver  this  car  became  a 
boon  to  the  capitol  contingent;  its  observation  platform 
served  as  a  shifting  rostrum  from  which  a  deep-chested 
executive  or  a  mellifluous  Hawk  often  addressed  ad- 
miring crowds  at  way  stations,  and  its  dining  saloon 
was  the  moving  scene  of  many  little  relaxative  feasts,  at 
which  Veuve  Cliquot  flowed  freely,  priceless  cigars  were 
burned,  and  the  members  of  the  organization  unbent, 
each  after  his  kind. 

But  to  the  men  of  the  throttle  and  oil-can,  car 
Naught-seven,  in  the  gift  of  a  hospitable  receiver,  short- 
(192) 


THE   JUNKETERS  193 

ly  became  a  nightmare.  Like  most  private  cars,  it  was 
heavier  than  the  heaviest  Pullman;  and  the  engineer 
who  was  constrained  to  haul  it  like  a  dragging  anchor 
at  the  tail  end  of  a  fast  train  was  prone  to  say  words 
not  to  be  found  in  any  vocabulary  known  to  respectable 
philologists. 

It  was  in  the  evening  of  a  wind-blown  day,  a  week 
after  Kent's  visit  to  Gaston,  that  Engineer  "Red"  Calla- 
han, oiling  around  for  the  all-night  run  with  the  Flyer 
on  the  Western  Division,  heard  above  the  din  and  clamor, 
of  Union  Station  noises  the  sullen  thump  betokening 
the  addition  of  another  car  to  his  train. 

"Now  f what  the  diwle  will  that  be  ?"  he  rasped,  paus- 
ing, torch  in  hand,  to  apostrophize  his  fireman. 

The  answer  came  up  out  of  the  shadows  to  the  rear 
on  the  lips  of  M'Tosh,  the  train-master. 

"You  have  the  Naught-seven  to-night,  Callahan,  and 
a  pretty  severe  head  wind.  Can  you  make  your  time  ?" 

"Haven't  thim  bloody  fools  in  the  up-town  office  any- 
thing betther  to  do  than  to  tie  that  sivinty-ton  ball- 
an'-chain  to  my  leg  such  a  night  as  this  ?"  This  is  not 
what  Callahan  said :  it  is  merely  a  printable  paraphrase 
of  his  rejoinder. 

M'Tosh  shook  his  head.  He  was  a  hold-over  from  the 
Loring  administration,  not  because  his  place  was  not 
worth  taking,  but  because  as  yet  no  political  heeler  had 
turned  up  with  the  requisite  technical  ability  to  hold  it 


194  THE    GRAFTERS 

"I  don't  blame  you  for  cussing  it  out/'  he  said;  and 
the  saying  of  it  was  a  mark  of  the  relaxed  discipline 
which  was  creeping  into  all  branches  of  the  service. 
"Mr.  Loring's  car  is  anybody's  private  wagon  these 
days.  Can  you  make  your  time  with  her  ?" 

"Not  on  yer  life,"  Callahan  growled.  "Is  it  the 
owld  potgutted  thafe  iv  a  rayceiver  that's  in  her  ?" 

"Yes ;  with  Governor  Bucks  and  a  party  of  his  friends. 
I  take  it  you  ought  to  feel  honored." 

"Do  I?"  snapped  Callahan.  "If  I  don't  make  thim 
junketers  think  they're  in  the  scuff  iv  a  cyclone  whin 
I  get  thim  on  the  crooks  beyant  Dolores  ye  can  gimme 
time,  Misther  M'Tosh.  Where  do  I  get  shut  iv  thim  ?" 

"At  Agua  Caliente.  They  are  going  to  the  hotel 
at  Breezeland,  I  suppose.  There  is  your  signal  to  pull 
out." 

"I'll  go  whin  I'm  dommed  good  an'  ready,"  said 
Callahan,  jabbing  the  snout  of  his  oiler  into  the  link 
machinery.  And  again  M'Tosh  let  the  breach  of  dis- 
cipline go  without  reproof. 

Breezeland  Inn,  the  hotel  at  Agua  Caliente,  is  a 
year-round  resort  for  asthmatics  and  other  health 
seekers,  with  a  sanatorium  annex  which  utilizes  the 
waters  of  the  warm  springs  for  therapeutic  purposes. 
But  during  the  hot  months  the  capital  and  the  plains 
cities  to  the  eastward  send  their  quota  of  summer  idlers 
and  the  house  fills  to  its  capacity. 


THE   JUNKETERS  195 

It  was  for  this  reason  that  Mr.  Brookes  Ormsby, 
looking  for  a  comfortable  resort  to  which  he  might 
take  Mrs.  Brentwood  and  her  daughters  for  an  outing, 
hit  upon  the  expedient  of  going  first  in  person  to 
Breezeland,  partly  to  make  sure  of  accommodations,  and 
partly  to  check  up  the  attractions  of  the  place  against 
picturesque  descriptions  in  the  advertisements. 

When  he  turned  out  of  his  sleeper  in  the  early  morn- 
ing at  Agua  Caliente  station,  car  Naught-seven  had  been 
thrown  in  on  a  siding  a  little  farther  up  the  line,  and 
Ormsby  recognized  the  burly  person  of  the  governor  and 
the  florid  face  and  pursy  figure  of  the  receiver,  in  the 
group  of  men  crossing  from  the  private  car  to  the  wait- 
ing Inn  tally-ho.  Being  a  seasoned  traveler,  the  club- 
man lost  no  time  in  finding  the  station  agent. 

"Isn't  there  some  way  you  can  get  me  up  to  the 
hotel  before  that  crowd  reaches?"  he  asked;  adding: 
"I'll  make  it  worth  your  while." 

The  reply  effaced  the  necessity  for  haste. 

"The  Inn  auto  will  be  down  in  a  few  minutes,  and 
you  can  go  up  in  that.  Naught-seven  brought  Gover- 
nor Bucks  and  the  receiver  and  their  party,  and  they're 
going  down  to  Megilp,  the  mining  camp  on  the  other 
side  of  the  State  line.  They've  chartered  the  tally-ho 
for  the  day." 

Ormsby  waited,  and  a  little  later  was  whisked  away 
to  the  hotel  in  the  tonneau  of  the  guests'  automobile. 


196  THE    GRAFTERS 

Afterward  came  a  day  which  was  rather  hard  to  get 
through.  Breakfast,  a  leisurely  weighing  and  measur- 
ing of  the  climatic,  picturesque  and  health-mending 
conditions,  and  the  writing  of  a  letter  or  two  helped 
him  wear  out  the  forenoon;  but  after  luncheon  the 
time  dragged  dispiteously,  and  he  was  glad  enough 
when  the  auto-car  came  to  take  him  to  the  station  for 
the  evening  train. 

As  it  happened,  there  were  no  other  passengers  for 
the  east-bound  Flyer;  and  finding  he  still  had  some 
minutes  to  wait,  Ormsby  lounged  into  the  telegraph 
office.  Here  the  bonds  of  ennui  were  loosened  by  the 
gradual  development  .of  a  little  mystery.  First  the 
telephone  bell  rang  smartly,  and  when  the  telegraph 
operator  took  down  the  ear-piece  and  said  "Well?" 
in  the  imperious  tone  common  to  his  kind,  he  evidently 
received  a  communication  that  shocked  him. 

Ormsby  overheard  but  a  meager  half  of  the  wire 
conversation;  and  the  excitement,  whatever  its  nature, 
was  at  the  other  end  of  the  line.  None  the  less,  the 
station  agent's  broken  ejaculations  were  provocative  of 
keen  interest  in  a  man  who  had  been  boring  himself 
desperately  for  the  better  part  of  a  day. 

"Caught  him  doing  it,  you  say?  .  .  .  Great 
Scott!  .  .  .  Oh,  I  don't  believe  that,  you  know 
.  .  .  yes — uh-huh — I  hear.  .  .  But  who  did  the 


THE   JUNKETERS  197 

shooting?"  Whether  the  information  came  or  not, 
Onnsby  did  not  know,  for  at  this  conjuncture  the  tele- 
graph instruments  on  the  table  set  up  a  furious  chat- 
tering, and  the  railway  man  dropped  the  receiver  and 
sprang  to  his  key. 

This  left  the  listener  out  of  it  completely,  and  Orms- 
by  strolled  out  to  the  platform,  wondering  what  had 
happened  and  where  it  had  happened.  He  glanced  up 
at  the  telephone  wires :  two  of  them  ran  up  the  graveled 
driveway  toward  Breezeland  Inn ;  the  poles  of  the  other 
two  sentineled  the  road  to  the  west  down  which  the 
tally-ho  had  driven  in  the  early  morning. 

In  the  reflective  instant  the  telegraph  operator  dashed 
out  of  his  bay-windowed  retreat  and  ran  up  the  track 
to  the  private  car.  In  a  few  minutes  he  was  back  again, 
holding  an  excited  conference  with  the  chauffeur  of 
the%  Inn  automobile,  who  was  waiting  to  see  if  the  Flyer 
should  bring  him  any  fares  for  the  hotel. 

Curiosity  is  said  to  be  peculiarly  a  foible  feminine.  It 
is  not,  as  every  one  knows.  But  of  the  major  masculine 
allotment,  Onnsby  the  masterful  had  rather  less  than 
his  due  share.  He  saw  the  chauffeur  turn  his  car  in 
the  length  of  it  and  send  it  spinning  down  the  road 
and  across  the  line  into  the  adjoining  State;  heard 
the  mellow  whistle  of  the  incoming  train,  and  saw  the 
station  man  nervously  setting  his  stop  signal;  all  with 


198  THE    GKAFTEKS 

no  more  than  a  mild  desire  to  know  the  reason  for  so 
much  excitement  and  haste — a  desire  which  was  con- 
tent to  wait  on  the  explanation  of  events. 

The  explanation,  such  as  it  was,  did  not  linger.  The 
heavy  train  thundered  in  from  the  west ;  stopped  barely 
long  enough  to  allow  the  single  passenger  to  swing  up 
the  steps  of  the  Pullman;  and  went  on  again  to  stop 
a  second  time  with  a  jerk  when  it  had  passed  the  side- 
track switch. 

Ormsby  put  his  head  out  of  the  window  and  saw  that 
the  private  car  was  to  be  taken  on;  remarked  also  that 
the  thing  was  done  with  the  utmost  celerity.  Once 
out  on  the  main  line  with  car  Naught-seven  coupled  in, 
the  train  was  backed  swiftly  down  to  the  station  and  the 
small  mystery  of  hurryings  was  sufficiently  solved.  The 
governor  and  his  party  were  returning,  and  they  did  not 
wish  to  miss  connections. 

Ormsby  had  settled  back  into  the  corner  of  his  sec- 
tion when  he  heard  the  spitting  explosions  of  the  auto- 
mobile and  the  crash  of  hoofs  and  iron-tired  wheels  on 
the  sharp  gravel.  He  looked  out  again  and  was  in  time 
to  see  the  finish  of  the  race.  Up  the  road  from  the  west- 
ward came  the  six-horse  tally-ho,  the  horses  galloping  in 
the  traces  and  the  automobile  straining  in  the  lead  at 
the  end  of  an  improvised  tow-line.  In  a  twinkling  the 
coach  was  abreast  of  the  private  car,  the  transfer  of 
passengers  was  effected,  and  Ormsby  was  near  enough 


THE   JUNKETEES  199 

at  his  onlooking  window  to  remark  several  things :  that 
there  was  pell-mell  haste  and  suppressed  excitement; 
that  the  governor  was  the  coolest  man  in  the  group ;  and 
that  the  receiver  had  to  be  helped  across  from  the  coach 
to  the  car.  Then  the  train  moved  out,  gathering  speed 
with  each  added  wheel-turn. 

The  onlooker  leaned  from  his  window  to  see  what 
became  of  the  tangle  of  horses  and  auto-car  precipi- 
tated by  the  sudden  stop  of  the  tally-ho.  Mirage  effects 
are  common  on  the  western  plains,  and  if  Ormsby  had 
not  been  familiar  with  them  he  might  have  marveled 
at  the  striking  example  afforded  by  the  backward  look. 
In  the  rapidly  increasing  perspective  the  six  horses  of 
the  tally-ho  were  suddenly  multiplied  into  a  troop ;  and 
where  the  station  agent  had  stood  on  the  platform  there 
seemed  to  be  a  dozen  gesticulating  figures  fading  into 
indistinctness,  as  the  fast  train  swept  on  its  way  east- 
ward. 

The  club-man  saw  no  more  of  the  junketing  party 
that  night.  Once  when  the  train  stopped  to  cut  out 
the  dining-car,  and  he  had  stepped  down  for  a  breath  of 
fresh  air  on  the  station  platform,  he  noticed  that  the 
private  car  was  brilliantly  lighted,  and  that  the  curtains 
and  window  shades  were  closely  drawn.  Also,  he  heard 
the  popping  of  bottle  corks  and  the  clink  of  glass,  be- 
tokening that  the  governor's  party  was  still  celebrating 
its  successful  race  for  the  train.  Singularly  enough, 


200  THE    GKAFTERS 

Ormsby's  reflections  concerned  themselves  chiefly  -with 
the  small  dishonesty. 

"I  suppose  it  all  goes  into  the  receiver's  expense  ac- 
count and  the  railroad  pays  for  it,"  he  said  to  himself. 
"So  and  so  much  for  an  inspection  trip  to  Megilp  and 
return.  I  must  tell  Kent  about  it.  It  will  put  an- 
other shovelful  of  coal  into  his  furnace — not  that  he 
is  especially  needing  it." 

At  the  moment  of  this  saying — it  was  between  ten 
and  eleven  o'clock  at  night — David  Kent's  wrath-fire 
was  far  from  needing  an  additional  stoking.  Once  more 
Miss  Van  Brock  had  given  proof  of  her  prophetic  gift, 
and  Kent  had  been  moodily  filling  in  the  details  of 
the  picture  drawn  by  her  woman's  intuition.  He  had 
gone  late  to  the  house  in  Alameda  Square,  knowing 
that  Portia  had  dinner  guests.  And  it  was  imperative 
that  he  should  have  her  to  himself. 

"Yon  needn't  tell  me  anything  but  the  manner  of 
its  doing,"  she  was  saying.  "I  knew  they  would  find  a 
way  to  stop  you — c:  make  one.  And  you  needn't  be 
spiteful  at  me,"  she  added,  when  Kent  gripped  the  arms 
of  his  chair. 

"I  don't  mind  your  saying  'I  told  you  so',"  he  fumed. 
'It's  the  fact  that  I  didr.'t  have  sense  enough  to  see 
what  an  easy  game  I  was  dealing  them.  It  didn't  take 
Meigs  five  minutes  to  shut  me  off." 


THE   JUNKETERS  201 

"Tell  me  about  it,"  she  said ;  and  he  did  it  crisply. 

"The  quo  warranto  inquiry  is  instituted  in  the  name 
of  the  State;  or  rather  the  proceedings  are  brought  by 
some  person  with  the  approval  of  the.  governor  or  the 
attorney-general,  one  or  both.  I  took  to-day  for  ob- 
taining this  approval  because  I  knew  Bucks  was  out  of 
town  and  I  thought  I  could  bully  Meigs." 

"And  you  couldn't?"  she  said. 

"Not  in  a  thousand  years.  At  first  he  said  he  would 
take  the  matter  under  advisement:  I  knew  that  meant 
a  consultation  with  Bucks.  Then  I  put  the  whip  on; 
told  him  a  few  of  the  things  I  know,  and  let  him 
imagine  a  lot  more;  but  it  was  no  good.  He  was  as 
smooth  as  oil,  admitting  nothing,  denying  nothing.  And 
what  grinds  me  w^rst  is  that  I  let  him  put  me  in  fault ; 
gave  him  a  chance  to  show  conclusively  how  absurd  it 
was  for  me  to  expect  him  to  take  up  a  question  of  such 
magnitude  on  the  spur  of  the  moment." 

"Of  course,"  she  said  sympathetically.  "I  knew  they 
would  find  a  way.  What  are  you  doing?" 

Kent  laughed  in  spite  of  his  sore  amour-propre. 

"At  this  present  moment  I  am  doing  precisely  what 
you  said  I  should :  unloading  my  woes  upon  you." 

"Oh,  but  I  didn't  say  that.  I  said  you  would  come  to 
me  for  help.  Have  you  ?" 

"I'd  say  yes,  if  I  didn't  know  so  well  just  what  I  am 
up  against." 


202  THE    GRAFTERS 

Miss  Van  Brock  laughed  unfeelingly. 
"Is  it  a  man's  weakness  to  fight  better  in  the  dark  ?" 
"It  is  a  man's  common  sense  to  know:  when  he  is 
knocked  out/'  he  retorted. 

She  held  him  with  her  eyes  while  she  said : 
"Tell  me  what  you  want  to  accomplish,  David;  at 
the  end  of  the  ends,  I  mean.    Is  it  only  that  you  wish 
to  save  Miss  Brentwood's  little  marriage  portion?" 

He  told  the  simple  truth,  as  who  could  help,  with 
Portia's  eyes  demanding  it. 

"It  was  that  at  first;  I'll  admit  it.    But  latterly—" 
"Latterly  you  have  begun  to  think  larger  things?" 
She  looked  away  from  him,  and  her  next  word  seemed 
to  be  part  of  an  unspoken  thought.    "I  have  been  won- 
dering if  you  are  great  enough,  David*" 
He  shook  his  head  despondently. 
"Haven't  I  just  been  showing  you  that  I  am  not  ?" 
"You  have  been  showing  me  that  you  can  not  always 
out-plan  the  other  person.    That  is  a  lack,  but  it  is  not 
fatal.  Are  you  great  enough  to  run  fast  and  far  when 
it  is  a  straight-away  race  depending  only  upon  mere 
man-strength  and  indomitable  determination?" 

Her  words  fired  him  curiously.  He  recalled  the  little 
thrill  of  inspiration  which  a  somewhat  similar  appeal 
from  Elinor  had  once  given  him,  and  tried  to  compare 
the  two  sensations.  There  was  no  comparison.  The 
one  was  a  call  to  moral  victory;  the  other  to  material 


THE   JUNKETERS  203 

success.  None  the  less,  he  decided  that  the  present  was 
the  more  potent  spell,  perhaps  only  because  it  was  the 
present. 

"Try  me,"  he  said  impulsively. 

"If  I  do  .  .  David,  no  man  can  serve  two  mas- 
ters— or  two  mistresses.  If  I  do,  will  you  agree  to  put 
the  sentimental  affair  resolutely  in  the  background  ?" 

He  took  his  head  in  his  hands  and  was  a  long  minute 
making  up  his  mind.  But  his  refusal  was  blunt 
enough  when  it  came. 

"No;  at  least,  not  until  they  are  married." 

It  would  have  taken  a  keener  discernment  than 
Kent's  or  any  man's  to  have  fathomed  the  prompting 
of  her  laugh. 

"I  was  only  trying  you,"  she  said.  "Perhaps,  if  you 
had  said  yes  I  should  have  deserted  you  and  gone  over 
to  the  other  side." 

He  got  up  and  went  to  sit  beside  her  on  the  pillowed 
divan. 

"Don't  try  me  again,  please — not  that  way.  I  am 
only  a  man." 

"I  make  no  promises — not  even  good  ones,"  she  re- 
torted. And  then :  "Would  you  like  to  have  your  quo 
warranto  blind  alley  turned  into  a  thoroughfare?" 

"I  believe  you  can  do  it  if  you  try,"  he  admitted, 
brightening  a  little. 

"Maybe  I  can;  or  rather  maybe  I  can  put  you  in  the 


204  THE   GEAFTEES 

way  of  doing  it.  You  say  Mr.  Meigs  is  obstinate,  and 
the  governor  is  likely  to  prove  still  more  obstinate. 
Have  you  thought  of  any  way  of  softening  them?" 

"You  know  I  haven't.  It's  a  stark  impossibility 
from  my  point  of  view." 

"Nothing  is  impossible;  it  is  always  a  question  of 
ways  and  means."  Then,  suddenly:  "Have  you  been 
paying  any  attention  to  the  development  of  the  Bel- 
mount  oil  field?" 

"Enough  to  know  that  it  is  a  big  thing;  the  biggest 
since  the  Pennsylvania  discoveries,  according  to  all  ac- 
counts." 

"And  the  people  of  the  State  are  enthusiastic  about 
it,  thinking  that  now  the  long  tyranny  of  the  oil  mo- 
nopoly will  be  broken?" 

"That  is  the  way  most  of  the  newspapers  talk,  and 
there  seems  to  be  some  little  ground  for  it,  granting 
the  powers  of  the  new  law." 

She  laid  the  tips  of  her  fingers  on  his  arm  and 
knotted  the  thread  of  suggestion  in  a  single  sentence. 

"In  the  present  state  of  affairs — with  the  People's 
Party  as  yet  on  trial,  and  the  public  mind  ready  to  take 
fire  at  the  merest  hint  of  a  foreign  capitalistic  monop- 
oly in  the  State — tell  me  what  would  happen  to  the 
man  who  would  let  the  Universal  Oil  Company  into 
the  Belmount  field  in  defiance  of  the  new  trust  and 
corporation  law?" 


THE   JUNKETERS  205 

"By  Jove!"  Kent  exclaimed,  sitting  up  as  if  the 
shapely  hand  had  given  him  a  buffet.  "It  would  ruin 
him  politically,  world  without  end!  Tell  me;  is  Bucks 
going  to  do  that  ?" 

She  laughed  softly. 

"That  is  for  you  to  find  out,  Mr.  David  Kent;  not1 
by  hearsay,  but  in  good,  solid  terms  of  fact  that  will 
appeal  to  a  level-headed,  conservative  newspaper  ed- 
itor like — well,  like  Mr.  Hildreth,  of  the  Argus,  let  us 
say.  Are  you  big  enough  to  do  it  ?" 

"I  am  desperate  enough  to  try,"  was  the  slow-spoken 
answer. 

"And  when  you  have  the  weapon  in  your  hands; 
when  you  have  found  the  sword  and  sharpened  it?" 

"Then  I  can  go  to  his  Excellency  and  tell  him  what 
will  happen  if  he  doesn't  instruct  his  attorney-general 
in  the  quo  warranto  affair." 

"That  will  probably  suffice  to  save  your  railroad — 
and  Miss  Brentwood's  marriage  portion.  But  after, 
David;  what  will  you  do  afterward?" 

'Til  go  on  fighting  the  devil  with  fire  until  I  have 
burned  him  out.  If  this  is  to  be  a  government  of  dicta- 
tors, I  can  be  one  of  them,  too." 

She  clapped  her  hands  enthusiastically. 

"There  spoke  the  man  David  Kent;  the  man  I  have 
been  trying  to  discover  deep  down  under  the  rubbish  of 


206  THE    GRAFTERS 

ill-temper  and  hesitancy  and — yes,  I  will  say  it— of  sen- 
timent. Have  you  learned  your  lesson,  David  mine?" 

It  was  a  mark  of  another  change  in  him  that  he  rose 
and  stood  over  her,  and  that  his  voice  was  cool  and  dis- 
passionate when  he  said : 

"If  I  have,  it  is  because  I  have  you  for  an  inspired 
text-book,  Portia  dear." 

And  with  that  he  took  his  leave. 


XVI 

SHARPENING  THE  SWORD 

In  the  beginning  of  the  new  campaign  of  investigation 
David  Kent  wisely  discounted  the  help  of  paid  profes- 
sional spies— or  rather  he  deferred  it  to  a  later  stage — 
by  taking  counsel  with  Jeffrey  Hildreth,  night  editor 
of  the  Argus.  Here,  if  anywhere,  practical  help  was  to 
be  had;  and  the  tender  of  it  was  cheerfully  hearty  and 
enthusiastic. 

"Most  assuredly  you  may  depend  on  the  Argus,  horse, 
foot  and  artillery,"  said  the  editor,  when  Kent  had 
guardedly  outlined  some  portion  of  his  plan.  "We  are 
on  your  side  of  the  fence,  and  have  been  ever  since 
Bucks  was  sprung  as  a  candidate  on  the  convention. 
But  you've  no  case.  Of  course,  it's  an  open  secret  that 
the  Universal  people  are  trying  to  break  through  the 
fence  of  the  new  law  and  establish  themselves  in  the 
Belmount  field  without  losing  their  identity  or  any  of 
their  monopolistic  privileges.  And  it  is  equally  a  mat- 
ter of  course  to  some  of  us  that  the  Bucks  ring  will 
(207) 


208  THE   GRAFTERS 

sell  the  State  out  if  the  price  is  right.  But  to  impli- 
cate Bucks  and  the  capitol  gang  in  printable  shape  is 
quite  another  matter." 

"I  know/'  Kent  admitted.  "But  it  isn't  impossi- 
ble; it  has  got  to  be  possible." 

The  night  editor  sat  back  in  his  chair  and  chewed  his 
cigar  reflectively.  Suddenly  he  asked : 

"What's  your  object,  Kent?  It  isn't  purely  pro 
"bono  publico,  I  take  it?" 

Kent  could  no  longer  say  truthfully  that  it  was,  and 
he  did  not  lie  about  it. 

"No,  it's  purely  personal,  I  guess.  I  need  to  get  a 
grip  on  Bucks  and  I  mean  to  do  it." 

Hildreth  laughed. 

"And,  having  got  it,  you'll  telephone  me  to  let  up — 
as  you  did  in  the  House  Bill  Twenty-nine  fiasco.  Where 
do  we  come  in?" 

"No;  you  shall  come  in  on  the  ground  floor  this 
time;  though  I  may  ask  you  to  hold  your  hand  until  I 
have  used  my  leverage.  And  if  you'll  go  into  it  to  stay, 
you  sha'n't  be  alone.  Giving  the  Argus  precedence  in 
any  item  of  news,  I'll  engage  to  have  every  other  oppo- 
sition editor  in  the  State  ready  to  back  you." 

"Gad!  you're  growing,  Kent.  Do  you  mean  to  down 
the  Bucks  crowd  ded-definitely  ?"  demanded  the  ed- 
itor, who  stammered  a  little  under  excitable  provoca- 
tion. "Bigger  men  than  you  have  tried  it— and  failed." 


SHARPENING   THE    SWORD  209 

"But  no  one  of  them  with  half  my  obstinacy,  Hil- 
dreth.  It  can  be  done,  and  I  am  going  to  do  it." 

The  night  editor  laughed  again. 

"If  you  can  show  that  gang  up,  Kent,  nothing  in 
this  State  will  be  too  good  for  you." 

"I've  got  it  to  do,"  said  Kent.  "Afterward,  perhaps 
I'll  come  around  for  some  of  the  good  things.  I  am  not 
in  this  for  health  or  pleasure.  Can  I  count  on  you 
after  the  mud-slinging  begins?" 

Hildreth  reflected  further,  disregarding  the  fore- 
man's reproachful  calls  for  copy. 

"I'll  go  you,"  he  said  at  last;  "and  I'll  undertake 
to  swing  the  chief  into  line.  But  I  am  going  to  disa- 
gree with  you  flat  on  the  project  of  a  sudden  expose. 
Eight  or  wrong,  Bucks  has  pup-popular  sentiment  on 
his  side.  Take  the  Trans-Western  territory,  for  exam- 
ple: at  the  present  speaking  these  grafters — or  their 
man  Guilf ord ;  it's  all  the  same — own  those  people  down 
there  body  and  soul.  You  couldn't  pry  Bucks  out  of 
their  affections  with  a  crowbar — suddenly,  I  mean. 
We'll  have  to  work  up  to  it  gradually;  educate  the  peo- 
ple as  we  go  along." 

"I  concede  that  much,"  said  Kent.  "And  you  may 
as  well  begin  on  this  same  Trans-Western  deal," — where- 
with he  pieced  together  the  inferences  which  pointed  to 
the  stock-smashing  project  behind  the  receivership. 

"Don't  use  too  much  of  it,"  he  added,  in  conclusion. 


210  THE    GRAFTERS 

"It  is  all  inference  and  deduction  as  yet,  as  I  say.  But 
you  will  admit  it's  plausible." 

The  editor  was  sitting  far  back  in  his  chair  again, 
chewing  absently  on  the  extinct  cigar. 

"Kent,  did  you  fuf -figure  all  that  out  by  yourself?" 

"No,"  said  Kent,  briefly.  "There  is  a  keener  mind 
than  mine  behind  it — and  behind  this  oil  field  business, 
as  well." 

"I'd  like  to  give  that  mind  a  stunt  on  the  Argus" 
said  the  editor.  "But  about  the  Belmount  mix-up: 
you  will  give  us  a  stickful  now  and  then  as  we  go  along, 
if  you  unearth  anything  that  the  public  would  like  to 
read?" 

"Certainly;  any  and  everything  that  won't  tend  to 
interfere  with  my  little  intermediate  scheme.  As  I  have 
intimated,  I  must  bring  Bucks  to  terms  on  my  own  ac- 
count before  I  turn  him  over  to  you  and  the  people 
of  the  State.  But  I  mean  to  be  in  on  that,  too." 

Hildreth  wagged  his  head  dubiously. 

"I  may  be  overcautious;  and  I  don't  want  to  seem 
to  scare  you  out,  Kent.  You  ought  to  know  your  man 
better  than  I  do — better  than  any  of  us;  but  if  I  had 
your  job,  I  believe  I  should  want  to  travel  with  a  body- 
guard. I  do,  for  a  fact." 

David  Kent's  laugh  came  easily.  Fear,  the  fear  of 
man,  was  not  among  his  weaknesses. 


SHARPENING   THE   SWORD  211 

"I  am  taking  all  the  chances/'  he  said;  and  so  the 
conference  ended. 

Two  days  later  the  "educational"  campaign  was 
opened  by  an  editorial  in  the  Argus  setting  forth  some 
hitherto  unpublished  matter  concerning  the  manner  in 
which  the  Trans- Western  had  been  placed  in  the  hands 
of  a  receiver.  In  its  next  issue  the  paper  named  the 
receivership  after  its  true  author,  showing  by  a  list  of 
the  officials  that  the  road  under  Major  Guilford  had 
been  made  a  hospital  for  Bucks  politicians,  and  hinting 
pointedly  that  it  was  to  be  wrecked  for  the  benefit  of  a 
stock-jobbing  syndicate  of  eastern  capitalists. 

Having  thus  reawakened  public  interest  in  the  Trans- 
Western  affair,  Hildreth  sounded  a  new  note  of  alarm 
pitched  upon  the  efforts  of  the  Universal  Oil  Company 
to  establish  itself  in  the  Belmount  oil  region;  a  cry 
which  was  promptly  taken  up  by  other  State  editors. 
This  editorial  was  followed  closely  by  others  in  the  same 
strain,  and  at  the  end  of  a  fortnight  Kent  was  fain  to 
call  a  halt. 

"Not  too  fast,  Hildreth,"  he  cautioned,  dropping  into 
the  editor's  den  late  one  night.  <fYou  are  doing  mighty 
good  work,  but  you  are  making  it  infinitely  harder  for 
me — driving  the  game  to  deeper  cover.  One  of  my  men 
had  a  clue:  Bucks  and  Meigs  were  holding  conferences 
with  a  man  from  the  Belmount  field  whose  record  runs 


212  THE    GEAFTERS 

back  to  New  York.  But  they  have  taken  the  alarm  and 
thrown  us  off  the  track." 

"The  secretary  of  State's  office  is  the  place  you  want 
to  watch,"  said  Hildreth.  "New  oil  companies  are  in- 
corporating every  day.  Pretty  soon  one  of  these  will 
swallow  up  all  the  others :  that  one  will  be  the  Universal 
under  another  name,  and  in  its  application  for  a  charter 
you'll  find  askings  big  enough  to  cover  all  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  the  original  monopoly." 

"That  is  a  good  idea,"  said  Kent,  who  already  had 
a  clerk  in  the  secretary  of  State's  office  in  his  pay. 
"But  how  are  we  coming  on  in  the  political  field  ?" 

"We  are  doing  business  there,  and  you  have  the  Ar- 
gus to  thank  for  it.  You — or  your  idea,  I  should  say — 
has  a  respectable  following  all  over  the  State  now ;-  as 
it  didn't  have  until  we  began  to  leg  for  it." 

Again  Kent  acquiesced,  making  no  mention  of  sun- 
dry journeys  he  had  made  for  the  sole  purpose  of  enlist- 
ing other  editors,  or  of  the  open  house  Miss  Van  Brock 
was  keeping  for  out-of-town  newspaper  men  visiting  the 
capital. 

"Moreover,  we've  served  your  turn  in  the  Trans- 
Western  affair,"  Hildreth  went  on.  "Public  interest  is 
on  the  qui  vive  for  new  developments  in  that.  By  the 
way,  has  the  capitol  gang  any  notion  of  your  part  in  all 
this  upstirring?" 

Kent  smiled  and  handed  the  editor  an  open  letter.    It 


SHARPENING   THE    SWORD  213 

was  froin  Receiver  Guilford.  The  post  of  general  coun- 
sel for  the  Trans-Western  was  vacant,  and  the  letter 
was  a  formal  tender  of  the  office  to  the  "Hon.  David 
Kent." 

"H'm,"  said  the  editor.  "I  don't  understand  that  a 
little  bit." 

"Why?" 

"If  they  could  get  you  to  accept  a  general  agency  in 
Central  Africa  or  New  Zealand,  or  some  other  anti- 
podean place  where  you'd  be  safely  out  of  the  way,  it 
would  be  evident  enough.  But  here  they  are  proposing 
to  take  you  right  into  the  heart  of  things." 

Kent  got  a  match  out  of  the  editor's  desk  and  relight- 
ed his  cigar. 

"You've   got  brain-fag  to-night,   Hildreth.     Ifs   a 

bribe,  pure  and  simple.    They  argue  that  it  is  merely  a 

% 

matter  of  dollars  and  cents  to  me,  as  it  would  be  to  one 
of  them;  and  they  propose  to  retain  me  just  as  they 
would  any  other  attorney  whose  opposition  they  might 
want  to  get  rid  of.  Don't  you  see  ?" 

"Sure.  I  was  thinking  up  the  wrong  spout.  Have 
you  replied  to  the  major?" 

"Yes.  I  told  him  that  my  present  engagements  pre- 
clude the  possibility  of  considering  his  offer;  much  to 
my  regret." 

"Did  you  say  that?  You're  a  cold-plucked  one,  Kent, 
and  I'm  coming  to  admire  you.  But  now  is  the  time  for 


214  THE    GEAFTERS 

you  to  begin  to  look  out.  They  have  spotted  you,  and 
their  attempt  to  buy  you  has  failed.  I  don't  know  how 
deeply  you  have  gone  into  Bucks'  tinkering  with  the 
Universal  people,  but  if  you  are  in  the  way  of  getting 
the  grip  you  spoke  of — as  this  letter  seems  to  indicate 
— you  want  to  be  careful." 

Kent  promised  and  went  his  way.  One  of  his  saving 
graces  was  the  ability  to  hold  his  tongue,  even  in  a 
confidential  talk  with  as  good  a  friend  as  Hildreth. 
As  for  example :  he  had  let  the  suggestion  of  watching 
the  secretary  of  State's  office  come  as  a  new  thing  from 
the  editor,  whereas  in  fact  it  was  one  of  the  earliest 
measures  he  had  taken. 

And  on  that  road  he  had  traveled  far,  thanks  to  a 
keen  wit,  to  Portia  Van  Brock's  incessant  promptings, 
and  to  the  help  of  the  leaky  clerk  in  Hendricks'  office ;  so 
far,  indeed,  that  he  had  found  the  "stool  pigeon"  oil 
company,  to  which  Hildreth's  hint  had  pointed — a  com- 
pany composed,  with  a  single  exception,  of  men  of 
"straw,"  the  exception  being  the  man  Rumford,  whose 
conferences  with  the  governor  and  the  attorney-general 
had  aroused  his  suspicions. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Hunnicott  reported  the 
sale  of  the  Gaston  lots  at  a  rather  fancy  cash  figure, 
and  the  money  came  in  good  play. 

"Two  things  remain  to  be  proved,"  said  Portia,  in 
one  of  their  many  connings  of  the  intricate  course; 


SHAKPENING   THE    SWOKD  215 

"two  things  that  must  be  proved  before  you  can  attack 
openly:  that  Eumford  is  really  representing  the  Uni- 
versal Oil  Company;  and  that  he  is  bribing  the  junto 
to  let  the  Universal  incorporate  under  the  mask  of  his 
'straw*  company.  Now  is  the  time  when  you  can  not 
afford  to  be  economical.  Have  you  money?" 

Since  it  was  the  day  after  the  Hunnicott  remittance, 
Kent  could  answer  yes  with  a  good  conscience. 

"Then  spend  it"  she  said ;  and  he  did  spend  it  like  a 
millionaire,  lying  awake  nights  to  devise  new  ways  of 
employing  it. 

And  for  the  abutments  of  the  arch  of  proof  the 
money-spending  sufficed.  By  dint  of  a  warm  and  some- 
what costly  wire  investigation  of  Eumford's  antece- 
dents, Kent  succeeded  in  placing  the  Belmount  promo- 
ter unquestionably  as  one  of  the  trusted  lieutenants  of 
the  Universal;  and  the  leaky  clerk  in  the  secretary  of 
State's  office  gave  the  text  of  the  application  for  the 
"straw"  company  charter,  showing  that  the  powers 
asked  for  were  as  despotic  as  the  great  monopoly  could 
desire. 

But  for  the  keystone  of  the  arch,  the  criminal  impli- 
cation of  the  plotters  themselves,  he  was  indebted  to  a 
fit  of  ill-considered  anger  and  to  a  chapter  of  accidents. 


XVII 

THE   CONSPIRATORS 

It  was  chiefly  due  to  Portia's  urgings  that  Kent  took 
Ormsby  into  his  confidence  when  the  campaign  was 
fairly  opened.  She  put  it  diplomatically  on  the  ground 
of  charity  to  an  exiled  millionaire,  temporarily  out  of 
a  job;  but  her  real  reason  went  deeper.  From  its  in- 
ception as  a  one-man  fight  against  political  chicanery 
in  high  places,  the  criticism  of  the  Bucks  formula  was 
beginning  to  shape  itself  in  a  readjustment  of  party 
lines  in  the  field  of  State  politics ;  and  Miss  Van  Brock, 
whose  designs  upon  Kent's  future  ran  far  in  advance  of 
her  admissions  to  him,  was  anxiously  casting  about  for 
a  managerial  promoter. 

A  little  practice-play  in  municipal  politics  made  the 
need  apparent.  It  came  in  the  midst  of  things,  basing 
itself  upon  the  year-gone  triumph  of  agrarianism  in  the 
State.  In  the  upheaval,  the  capital  city  had  partici- 
pated to  the  extent  of  electing  a  majority  of  the  alder- 
men on  the  People's  Party  ticket;  and  before  long  it 
(216) 


THE   COKSPIKATORS 


developed  that  a  majority  of  this  aldermanic  majority 
could  be  counted  among  the  spoilsmen  —  was  in  fact  a 
creature  of  the  larger  ring. 

Late  in  the  summer  an  ordinance  was  proposed  by 
the  terms  of  which  a  single  corporation  was  to  be  given 
a  franchise  granting  a  complete  monopoly  of  the  streets 
for  gas  and  water  mains  and  transit  rights  of  way. 
Thereupon  a  bitter  struggle  ensued.  Party  lines  were 
obliterated,  and  men  who  shunned  the  primaries  and 
otherwise  shirked  their  political  duties  raised  the  cry 
of  corruption,  and  a  Civic  League  was  formed  to  fight 
the  ring. 

Into  this  struggle,  as  giving  him  the  chance  to  front 
the  enemy  in  a  fair  field,  David  Kent  flung  himself  with 
all  the  ardor  of  a  born  fighter.  Mass  meetings  were 
held,  with  Kent  as  spokesman  for  the  League,  and  the 
outcome  was  a  decency  triumph  which  brought  Kent's 
name  into  grateful  public  prominence.  Hildreth  played 
an  able  second,  and  by  the  time  the  obnoxious  ordinance 
had  been  safely  tabled,  Kent  had  a  semi-political  fol- 
lowing which  was  all  his  own.  Men  who  had  hither- 
to known  him  only  as  a  corporation  lawyer  began  to 
prophesy  large  things  of  the  fiery  young  advocate,  whose 
arguments  were  as  sound  and  convincing  as  his  invec- 
tive was  keen  and  merciless. 

Figuratively  speaking,  Portia  stood  in  the  wings  and 
applauded.  Also,  she  saw  that  her  protege  had  reached 


218  THE   GRAFTERS 

the  point  where  he  needed  grooming  for  whatever  race 
lay  before  him.  Hence  her  urgings,  which  made  a  tri- 
umvirate out  of  the  council  of  two,  with  Brookes  Orms- 
by  as  the  third  member. 

"You  understand,  I'm  not  interested  a  little  bit  in 
the  merits  of  the  case,"  said  the  newly  elected  chair- 
man, in  his  first  official  interview  with  Miss  Van  Brock, 
"So  far  as  the  internal  politics  of  this  particularly  wild 
and  woolly  State  are  concerned,  I'm  neither  in  them  nor 
of  them.  But  I  am  willing  to  do  what  I  can  for  Kent." 

"Owing  him  a  good  turn?"  said  Portia,  with  malice 
aforethought. 

Ormsby's  laugh  was  an  Englishman's  deep-chested 
haw-haw. 

"S'o  he  has  been  making  you  his  confidante  in  that, 
too,  has  he?" 

"There  was  no  confidence  needed,"  she  retorted.  "I 
have  eyes;  and,  to  use  one  of  your  own  pet  phrases,  I 
was  not  born  yesterday.  But  let  that  go :  you  are  will- 
ing to  help  us?" 

"I  said  I  was  willing  to  help  Kent.  If  you  bracket 
yourself  with  him,  I  am  more  than  willing.  But  I  am 
rather  new  to  the  game.  You  will  have  to  tell  me  the 
moves." 

"We  are  only  in  the  opening,"  she  said,  continuing 
the  figure.  "You  will  learn  as  you  go  along.  By  and 
by  you  will  have  to  spend  money;  but  just  now  the  need 


THE    CONSPIRATORS  219 

is  for  a  cool  head  to  keep  our  young  firebrand  out  of 
the  personalities.  Where  is  he  to-night  ?" 

Ormsby's  smile  was  a  grin. 

"I  left  him  at  124  Tejon  Avenue  half  an  hour  ago. 
Do  you  think  he  is  likely  to  get  into  trouble  there  ?" 

On  the  porch  of  the  Brentwood  apartment  house 
David  Kent  was  answering  that  question  measurably 
well  for  himself.  With  the  striking  of  the  City  Hall 
clock  at  nine  Mrs.  Brentwood  had  complained  of  the 
glare  of  the  electric  crossing-lamp  and  had  gone  in, 
leaving  the  caller  with  Penelope  in  the  hammock  on 
one  side  of  him  and  Elinor  in  a  basket  chair  on  the 
other. 

Their  talk  had  been  of  the  late  municipal  struggle, 
and  of  Kent's  part  in  it;  and,  like  Miss  Van  Brock, 
Penelope  was  applausive.  But  Elinor's  congratulations 
were  tempered  with  deprecation. 

"I  am  glad  you  won  for  the  League,  of  course ;  every- 
body must  be  glad  of  that,"  she  said.  "But  I  hope  the 
Argus  didn't  report  your  speeches  correctly.  If  it  did, 
you  have  made  a  host  of  bitter  enemies." 

"What  does  a  man — a  real  man — care  for  that?" 
This  from  the  depths  of  the  hammock. 

"I,  at  least,  can  afford  to  be  careless,"  said  Kent. 
"I  am  not  running  for  office,  and  I  have  nothing  to  lose, 
politically  or  otherwise." 

"Can  any  man  say  that  truthfully?"  Elinor  queried. 


220  THE    GKAFTEKS 

"I  think  I  can.  I  have  given  no  hostages  to  for- 
tune." 

Penelope  lifted  the  challenge  promptly. 

"Lord  Bacon  said  that,  didn't  he? — about  men  mar- 
rying. If  he  were  alive  now  he  wouldn't  need  to  say 
it.  Men  don't  have  to  be  discouraged." 

"Don't  they?"  said  Kent. 

"No,  indeed;  they  are  too  utterly  selfish  for  any 
matrimonial  use,  as  it  is.  No,  don't  argue  with  me, 
please.  I'm  fixed — irrevocably  fixed." 

Elinor  overtook  the  runaway  conversation  and  drove 
it  back  into  the  path  of  her  own  choosing. 

"But  I  do  think  you  owe  it  to  yourself  to  be  more 
careful  in  your  public  utterances,"  she  insisted.  "If 
these  men  on  the  other  side  are  only  half  as  unprinci- 
pled as  your  accusations  make  them  out  to  be,  they 
would  not  stop  short  of  personal  violence." 

"I  am  not  hunting  clemency  or  personal  immunity 
just  now,"  laughed  Kent.  "On  the  contrary,  I  am  only 
anxious  to  make  the  score  as  heavy  as  possible.  And  so 
far  from  keeping  prudently  in  the  background,  I'll  con- 
fess that  I  went  into  this  franchise  fight  chiefly  to  let 
the  capitol  gang  know  who  I  am  and  where  I  stand." 

A  sudden  light  came  into  Elinor's  eyes  and  burned 
there  steadily.  She  was  of  those  who  lay  votive  offer- 
ings upon  the  shrine  of  manly  courage. 

"One  part  of  me  approves  as  much  as  another  part 


THE    CONSPIRATORS  221 

disapproves/'  she  said  after  a  time.  "I  suppose  it  isn't 
possible  to  avoid  making  political  enemies;  but  is  it 
needful  to  turn  them  into  personal  enemies?" 

He  looked  at  her  curiously. 

"I  am  afraid  I  don't  know  any  miHdle  path,  not  be- 
ing a  politician,"  he  objected.  "And  as  for  the  enmity 
of  these  men,  I  shall  count  it  an  honor  to  win  it.  If 
I  do  not  win  it,  I  shall  know  I  am  not  succeeding." 

Silence  for  another  little  space,  which  Miss  Brent- 
wood  broke  by  saying: 

"Don't  you  want  to  smoke  ?    You  may." 

Kent  felt  in  his  pocket. 

"I  have  no  cigar." 

She  looked  past  him  to  the  hammock.  "Penelope!" 
she  called  softly;  and  when  there  was  no  response  she 
went  to  spread  the  hammock  rug  over  her  sister. 

"You  may  smoke  your  pipe,"  she  said ;  and  when  she 
had  passed  behind  him  to  her  chair  she  made  another 
concession :  "Let  me  fill  it  for  you — you  used  to." 

He  gave  her  the  pipe  and  tobacco,  and  by  a  curious 
contradiction  of  terms  began  to  wonder  if  he  ought  not 
to  go.  Notwithstanding  his  frank  defiance  of  Brookes 
Ormsby,  and  his  declaration  of  intention  in  the  senti- 
mental affair,  he  had  his  own  notions  about  the  sanctity 
of  a  betrothal.  Mrs.  Brentwood  had  vanished,  and  Pe- 
nelope was  asleep  in  the  hammock.  Could  he  trust  him- 
self to  be  decently  loyal  to  Ormsby  if  he  should  stay? 


222  THE    GRAFTERS 

Nice  questions  of  conscience  had  not  been  troubling 
him  much  of  late;  but  this  was  new  ground — or  if  not 
new,  so  old  that  it  had  the  effect  of  being  new. 

He  let  the  question  go  unanswered — and  stayed.  But 
he  was  minded  to  fling  the  biggest  barrier  he  could  lay 
hands  on  in  the  way  of  possible  disloyalty  by  saying 
good  things  of  Ormsby. 

"I  owe  you  much  for  my  acquaintance  with  him/'  he 
said,  when  the  subject  was  fairly  introduced.  "He  has 
been  all  kinds  of  a  good  friend  to  me,  and  he  promises 
to  be  more." 

"Isn't  your  debt  to  Penelope,  rather  than  to  me?" 
she  returned.  .  , 

"No,  I  think  not.  You  are  responsible,  in  the  broader 
sense,  at  all  events.  He  did  not  come  West  for  Penel- 
ope's sake."  Then  he  took  the  plunge:  "May  I  know 
when  it  is  to  be — or  am  I  to  wait  for  my  bidding  with 
the  other  and  more  formally  invited  guests  ?" 

She  laughed,  a  low  little  laugh  that  somehow  grated 
upon  his  nerves. 

"You  shall  know — when  I  know." 

"Forgive  me,"  he  said  quickly.  "But  from  something 
Ormsby  said — " 

"He  should  not  have  spoken  of  it;  I  have  given  him 
no  right,"  she  said  coldly. 

"You  make  me  twice  sorry :  once  if  I  am  a  trespasser, 


THE    CONSPIRATORS  223 

and  again  if  I  have  unwittingly  broken  a  confidence. 
But  as  a  friend — a  very  old  friend — I  ventured — " 

She  interrupted  him  again,  but  this  time  her  laugh 
did  not  hurt  him. 

"Yes;  our  friendship  antedates  Mr.  Ormsby;  it  is 
old  enough  to  excuse  anything  you  said — or  were  going 
to  say." 

"Thank  you,"  he  rejoined,  and  he  meant  it.  "What 
I  was  going  to  say  touches  a  matter  which  I  believe 
you  haven't  confided  to  any  one.  May  I  talk  business 
for  a  few  minutes?" 

"If  you  will  light  your  pipe  and  go  on  smoking.  It 
makes  me  nervous  to  have  people  hang  on  the  brink  of 
things." 

He  lighted  the  pipe,  wondering  what  other  thing  he 
might  do  to  allay  her  nervousness.  None  the  less,  he 
would  not  go  back  from  his  purpose,  which  was  barrier- 
building. 

"I  have  thought,  wholly  without  warrant,  perhaps, 
that  your  loss  in  this  railroad  steal  has  had  something 
to  do  with  the  postponement  of  your  happiness — and 
Ormsby's.  Has  it?" 

"And  if  it  should  have?" 

"I  merely  wanted  to  say  that  we  still  have  a  fighting 
chance.  But  one  of  the  hard  and  fast  conditions  is 
that  every  individual  stockholder  shall  hang  on  to  his 
or  her  holdings  like  grim  death." 


224  THE    GRAFTERS 

She  caught  her  breath  with  a  little  gasp. 

"The  encouragement  comes  too  late  for  us.  We  have 
parted  with  our  stock." 

Kent  turned  cold  and  hot  and  cold  again  while  she 
was  saying  it.  Then  the  lawyer  in  him  came  uppermost. 

"Is  it  gone  heyond  recall?  How  much  too  late  am 
I  ?"  he  demanded. 

"My  mother  wrote  the  letter  to-day.  She  had  an  offer 
from  some  one  in  New  York." 

Kent  was  on  his  feet  instantly. 

"Has  that  letter  been  mailed?  Because  if  it  has, 
it  must  be  stopped  by  wire !" 

Miss  Brentwood  rose. 

"It  was  on  the  hall  table  this  afternoon;  I'll  go  and 
see,"  and  in  a  moment  she  returned  with  the  letter  in 
her  hand. 

Kent  took  it  from  her  as  if  it  had  been  an  edged 
weapon  or  a  can  of  high  explosives. 

"Heavens !  what  a  turn  you  gave  me !"  he  said,  sitting 
down  again.  "Can  I  see  your  mother  ?" 

"I  think  she  has  gone  to  bed.  What  do  you  want  to 
do?" 

"I  want  to  tell  her  that  she  mustn't  do  any  such  sui- 
cidal thing  as  this." 

"You  don't  know  my  mother,"  was  the  calm  reply. 
"Mr.  Ormsby  said  everything  he  could  think  of." 


THE    CONSPIKATORS  225 

"Then  we  must  take  matters  into  our  own  hands. 
Will  you  help  me?" 

"How?"  she  asked. 

"By  keeping  your  own  counsel  and  trusting  me.  Your 
mother  supposes  this  letter  has  gone :  it  has  gone — this 
way."  He  tore  the  sealed  envelope  across  and  across 
and  dropped  the  pieces  into  his  pocket.  "Now  we  are 
safe — at  least  until  the  man  at  the  other  end  writes 
again." 

It  shocked  her  a  little,  and  she  did  not  promise  to  be 
a  party  to  the  subterfuge.  But  neither  did  she  say  she 
would  not. 

"I  am  willing  to  believe  that  you  have  strong  reasons 
for  taking  such  strong  measures,"  she  said.  "May  I 
know  them  ?" 

Kent's  gift  of  reticence  came  to  his  rescue  in  time 
to  prevent  the  introduction  of  another  and  rather  un- 
certain factor  into  his  complicated  problem. 

"I  can  explain  it  more  intelligibly  a  little  later  on; 
or  if  I  don't,  Ormsby  will.  In  the  mean  time,  you  must 
take  my  word  for  it  that  we  shall  have  our  railroad 
back  in  due  season." 

It  is  a  question  for  the  psychologists  to  answer  if 
there  be  or  be  not  crises  in  a  man's  life  when  the  event, 
weighty  or  trivial,  turns  upon  that  thing  which,  for 
the  want  of  a  better  name,  is  called  a  premonition. 


226  THE    GRAFTERS 

In  the  silence  that  followed  his  dismissal  of  the  sub- 
ject, Kent  became  aware  of  a  vague  prompting  which 
was  urging  him  to  cut  his  visit  short.  There  was  no 
definable  reason  for  his  going.  He  had  finally  brought 
himself  to  the  point  of  speaking  openly  to  Elinor  of  her 
engagement,  and  they  were,  as  he  fondly  believed,  safely 
beyond  the  danger  point  in  that  field.  Moreover,  Pe- 
nelope was  stirring  in  her  hammock  and  the  perilous 
privacy  was  at  an  end.  Nevertheless,  he  rose  and  said 
good-night,  and  was  half-way  to  the  next  corner  before 
he  realized  how  inexcusably  abrupt  his  leave-taking  had 
been. 

When  he  did  realize  it,  he  was  of  two  minds  whether 
to  go  back  or  to  let  the  apology  excuse  another  call  the 
following  evening.  Then  the  insistent  prompting  seized 
him  again ;  and  when  next  he  came  to  a  competent  sense 
of  things  present  he  was  standing  opposite  the  capitol 
building,  staring  fixedly  up  at  a  pair  of  lighted  win- 
dows in  the  second  story. 

They  were  the  windows  of  the  governor's  room;  and 
David  Kent's  brain  cleared  suddenly.  In  the  earliest 
beginnings  of  the  determinate  plan  to  wrest  the  Trans- 
Western  out  of  the  grasp  of  the  junto  he  had  known 
that  it  must  come  finally  to  some  desperate  duel  with 
the  master-spirit  of  the  ringsters.  Was  Jasper  Bucks 
behind  those  lighted  windows — alone? 


THE    CONSPIEATOES  227 

Kent  had  not  meant  to  make  the  open  attack  until  he 
should  have  a  weapon  in  his  hands  which  would  arm 
him  to  win.  But  now  as  he  stood  looking  up  at  the 
beckoning  windows  a  mad  desire  to  have  it  out  once 
for  all  with  the  robber-in-chief  sent  the  blood  tingling 
to  his  finger-tips.  True,  he  had  nothing  as  yet  in  the 
oil-field  conspiracy  that  the  newspapers  or  the  public 
would  accept  as  evidence  of  fraud  and  corruption.  But 
on  the  other  hand,  Bucks  was  only  a  man,  after  all; 
a  man  with  a  bucaneer's  record,  and  by  consequence 
vulnerable  beneath  the  brazen  armor  of  assurance.  If 
the  attack  were  bold  enough — 

Kent  did  not  stop  to  argue  it  out.  When  a  man's 
blood  is  up  the  odds  against  him  shrink  and  become  as 
naught.  Two  minutes  later  he  was  in  the  upper  cor- 
ridor of  the  capitol,  striding  swiftly  to  the  door  of  the 
lighted  room. 

Eecalling  it  afterward  he  wondered  if  the  occult 
prompting  which  had  dragged  him  out  of  his  chair  on 
the  Brentwood  porch  saw  to  it  that  he  walked  upon  the 
strip  of  matting  in  the  tile-paved  corridor  and  so  made 
his  approach  noiseless.  Also,  if  the  same  silent  monitor 
bade  him  stop  short  of  the  governor's  office :  at  the  door, 
namely,  of  the  public  anteroom,  which  stood  ajar? 

A  low  murmur  of  voices  came  from  beyond,  and  for 
a  moment  he  paused  listening.  Then  he  went  boldly 


228  THE   GRAFTERS 

within,  crossing  the  anteroom  and  standing  fairly  in 
the  broad  beam  of  light  pouring  through  the  open  door 
of  communication  with  the  private  office. 

Four  men  sat  in  low-toned  conference  around  the 
governor's  writing-table,  and  if  any  one  of  them  had 
looked  up  the  silent  witness  must  have  been  discovered. 
Kent  marked  them  down  one  by  one:  the  governor; 
Hendricks,  the  secretary  of  State;  Rumford,  the  oil 
man;  and  Senator  Duvall.  For  five  pregnant  minutes 
he  stood  looking  on,  almost  within  arm's  reach  of  the 
four;  hearing  distinctly  what  was  said;  seeing  the  pa- 
pers which  changed  hands  across  the  table.  Then  he 
turned  and  went  away,  noiselessly  as  he  had  come,  the 
thick-piled  carpet  of  the  anteroom  muffling  his  footfalls. 

It  was  midnight  when  he  reached  his  quarters  in  the 
Clarendon  and  flung  himself  full  length  upon  the  bed, 
sodden  with  weariness.  For  two  hours  he  had  tramped 
the  deserted  streets,  striving  in  sharp  travail  of  soul  to 
fit  the  invincible,  chance-given  weapon  to  his  hand. 
When  he  came  in  the  thing  was  done,  and  he  slept  the 
sleep  of  an  outworn  laborer. 


XVIII 
DOWN,  BRUNO! 

For  six  days  after  the  night  of  revelations  Kent 
dived  deep,  personally  and  hy  paid  proxy,  in  a  sea  of 
secrecy  which,  but  for  the  five  pregnant  minutes  in  the 
doorway  of  the  governor's  office,  might  easily  have 
proved  fathomless. 

On  the  seventh  day  the  conflagration  broke  out.  The 
editor  of  the  Belmount  Refiner  was  the  first  to  smell 
smoke  and  to  raise  the  cry  of  "Fire !"  but  by  midnight 
the  wires  were  humming  with  the  news  and  the  entire 
State  was  ablaze. 

The  story  as  it  appeared  under  the  scare  headlines 
the  next  morning  was  crisply  told.  An  oil  company 
had  been  formed  with  Senator  Duvall  at  its  head.  After 
its  incorporation  it  was  ascertained  that  it  not  only 
held  options  on  all  the  most  valuable  wells  in  the  Bel- 
mount  region,  but  that  its  charter  gave  it  immunity 
from  the  law  requiring  all  corporations  to  have  their 
organizations,  officers,  and  operating  headquarters  in 
(229) 


230  THE    GRAFTERS 

the  State.  By  the  time  the  new  company  was  three 
days  old  it  had  quietly  taken  up  its  options  and  was  the 
single  big  fish  in  the  pool  by  virtue  of  its  having  swal- 
lowed all  the  little  ones. 

Then  came  the  finishing  stroke  which  had  set  the 
wires  to  humming.  On  the  sixth  day  it  was  noised 
about  that  Senator  Duvall  had  transferred  his  control- 
ling interest  to  Eumford — otherwise  to  the  Universal 
Oil  Company;  that  he  had  served  only  as  a  figurehead 
in  the  transaction,  using  his  standing,  social  and  po- 
litical, to  secure  the  charter  which  had  been  denied 
Rumford  and  his  associates. 

It  had  all  been  managed  very  skilfully;  the  capping 
of  the  wells  by  the  Universal's  agent,  the  practical  seal- 
ing up  of  the  entire  district,  being  the  first  public  in- 
timation of  the  result  of  DuvalPs  treachery  and  the 
complete  triumph  of  a  foreign  monopoly. 

The  storm  that  swept  the  State  when  the  facts  came 
out  was  cyclonic,  and  it  was  reported,  as  it  needed  to 
be,  that  Senator  Duvall  had  disappeared.  Never  in  the 
history  of  the  State  had  public  feeling  risen  so  high; 
and  there  were  not  lacking  those  who  said  that  if  Du- 
vall showed  himself  his  life  would  not  be  safe  in  the 
streets  of -the  capital. 

It  was  after  the  Argus  had  gone  to  press  on  the  night 
of  explosions  that  Editor  Hildreth  sought  and  found 


DOWN,   BRUNO!  231 

David  Kent  in  his  rooms  at  the  Clarendon,  and  poured 
out  the  vials  of  his  wrath. 

"Say,  I'd  like  to  know  if  you  cue-call  this  giving  me 
a  fair  show !"  he  demanded,  flinging  into  Kent's  sitting- 
room  and  dropping  into  a  chair.  "Did  I,  or  did  I  not 
understand  that  I  was  to  have  the  age  on  this  oil  busi- 
ness when  there  was  anything  fit  to  print?" 

Kent  gave  the  night  editor  a  cigar  and  was  otherwise 
exasperatingly  imperturbable. 

"Keep  your  clothes  on,  and  don't  accuse  a  man  of 
disloyalty  until  you  have  all  the  documents  in  the  case," 
he  said.  "I  didn't  know,  until  I  saw  your  bulletin  a 
few  hours  ago,  that  the  thing  had  been  pulled  off.  In 
fact,  I've  been  too  busy  with  other  things  to  pay  much 
attention  to  the  Belmount  end  of  it." 

"The  ded-devil  you  have !"  sputtered  Hildreth,  chew- 
ing savagely  on  the  gift  cigar.  "I'd  like  to  know  what 
business  you  had  to  mix  up  in  other  things  to  the  detri- 
ment of  my  news  column.  You  were  the  one  man  who 
knew  all  about  it;  or  at  least  you  did  a  week  or  two 
ago." 

"Yes ;  but  other  and  more  important  things  have  in- 
tervened. I  have  been  desperately  busy,  as  I  say." 

"Well,  you've  lost  your  chance  to  get  your  grip  on 
the  capitol  gang,  anyway ;  that  is  one  comfort,"  growled 
the  editor,  getting  what  consolation  he  could  out  of 


232  THE    GEAFTERS 

Kent's  apparent  failure.  "They  played  it  too  fuf-fine 
for  you." 

"Did  they  ?"  said  Kent. 

"It  looks  pretty  much  that  way,  doesn't  it?  Duvall 
is  the  scapegoat,  and  the  only  one.  About  day  after 
to-morrow  Bucks'  organ,  the  Tribune,  will  come  out 
with  an  'inspired'  editorial  whitewashing  the  entire 
capitol  outfit.  It  will  show  how  Rumford's  application 
for  the  charter  was  refused,  and  how  a  truly  good  and 
beneficent  state  government  has  been  hoodwinked  and 
betrayed  by  one  of  its  most  trusted  supporters." 

Kent  threw  off  his  street  coat  and  went  to  get  his 
dressing-gown  from  .the  wardrobe  in  the  bedroom. 
When  he  came  back  he  said :  "Hildreth,  you  have  taken 
me  at  my  word  thus  far,  and  you  haven't  had  occasion  to 
call  me  either  a  knave  or  a  fool.  Do  it  a  little  longer 
and  I'll  put  you  in  the  way  of  touching  off  a  set-piece 
of  pyrotechnics  that  will  double  discount  this  mild  lit- 
tle snap-cracker  of  the  Belmount  business." 

"Can't  you  do  it  now?" 

"No;  the  time  isn't  ripe  yet.  We  must  let  the  Trib- 
une's coat  of  whitewash  dry  in  first." 

Hildreth  wriggled  in  his  chair. 

"Kent,  if  I  thought  it  would  do  any  good,  I'd  cue- 
curse  you  out ;  I  would  for  a  fact.  You  are  too  blamed 
close-mouthed  for  any  ordinary  newspaper  use." 

But  Kent  only  laughed  at  him.    Now  that  the  strain 


DOWN,   BKUNO!  233 

was  in  some  measure  relaxed  he  could  stand  any  amount 
of  abuse  from  so  good  a  friend  as  the  night  editor. 

"Turn  on  the  hot  water  if  you  want  to,  and  if  it  will 
relieve  the  pressure.  I  know  about  how  you  feel ;  and 
I'd  be  as  sore  as  you  are  if  I  didn't  know  that  I  am 
going  to  make  it  up  to  you  a  little  later  on.  But  about 
this  oil  blaze  and  to-morrow's — or  to-day's — issue  of  the 
Argus.  I  hope  you  haven't  said  too  much/' 

"I  haven't  sus-said  anything.  The  stuff  trickled  in 
by  Associated  wire  at  the  last  minute,  and  we  had  to 
cut  and  slash  for  space  and  run  it  pretty  much  as  it 
came — the  bare  story." 

"All  right;  that's  better.  Now  suppose  you  hint 
darkly  that  only  half  of  the  truth  has  come  out;  that 
more — and  more  startling — developments  may  be  safely 
predicted  in  the  immediate  hence.  Hit  it  up  hard  to- 
ward the  capitol,  and  don't  be  afraid  of  libeling  any- 
body." 

Hildreth's  eyes  narrowed. 

"Say,  Kent;  you  have  grown  a  lot  in  these  last  few 
weeks :  what  is  your  diet  ?" 

"Hard  work — and  a  determination  to  make  my  brag 
good." 

"To  down  the  ring,  you  mean  ?" 

"Yes ;  to  down  the  ring." 

"Are  you  any  nearer  to  it  than  you  were  when  you 
began?" 


234  THE   GEAFTEES 

"A  good  many  parasangs." 

"By  Jove !  I  more  than  half  believe  you've  got  hold 
of  something  ded-definite  at  last !" 

"I  have,  indeed.  Hildreth,  I  have  evidence — print- 
able evidence — enough  to  dig  a  dozen  political  graves, 
one  of  them  big  enough  to  hold  Jasper  G.  Bucks'  six- 
feet-two." 

"Let  me  see  it!"  said  the  night  editor,  eagerly;  but 
Kent  laughed  and  pushed  him  toward  the  door. 

"Go  home  and  go  to  bed.  I  wouldn't  show  it  to  you 
to-night  if  I  had  it  here — as  I  have  not.  I  don't  go 
around  with  a  stick  of  dynamite  in  my  pocket." 

"Where  is  it?"  Hildreth  asked. 

"It  is  in  a  safety-deposit  box  in  the  vault  of  the 
Security  Bank;  where  it  is  going  to  stay  until  I  am 
ready  to  use  it.  Go  home,  I  say,  and  let  me  go  to  bed. 
I'm  ragged  enough  to  sleep  the  clock  around." 

In  spite  of  his  weariness,  which  was  real  enough, 
Kent  was  up  betimes  the  next  morning.  He  had  a  wire 
appointment  with  Blashfield  Hunnicott  and  two  others 
in  Gaston,  and  he  took  an  early  train  to  keep  it.  The 
ex-local  attorney  met  him  at  the  station  with  a  two- 
seated  rig ;  and  on  the  way  to  the  western  suburbs  they 
picked  up  Frazee,  the  county  assessor,  and  Orton,  the 
appraiser  of  the  Apache  Building  and  Loan  Associa- 
tion. 

"Hunnicott  has  told  you  what  I  am  after,"  said  Kent, 


DOWN,   BKUXO!  235 

when  the  surrey  party  was  made  up.  "We  all  know  the 
property  well  enough,  but  to  have  it  all  fair  and  above- 
board,  we'll  drive  out  and  look  it  over  so  that  our  knowl- 
edge may  be  said  to  be  fully  up  to  date." 

Twenty  minutes  afterward  the  quartet  was  locat- 
ing the  corners  of  a  square  in  Gaston's  remotest  suburb ; 
an  "addition"  whose  only  improvements  were  the  weath- 
ered and  rotting  street  and  lot  stakings  on  the  bare, 
brown  plain. 

"  'Lots  1  to  56  in  Block  10,  Guilford  &  Hawk's  Addi- 
tion/ "  said  Kent,  reading  from  a  memorandum  in  his 
note-book.  "It  lies  beautifully,  doesn't  it  ?" 

"Yes;  for  a  chicken  farm,"  chuckled  the  assessor. 

"Well,  give  me  your  candid  opinion,  you  two:  what 
is  the  property  worth?" 

The  Building  and  Loan  man  scratched  his  chin. 

"Say  fifty  dollars  for  the  plot — if  you'll  fence  it" 

"No,  put  it  up.  You  are  having  a  little  boom  here 
now :  give  it  the  top  boom  price,  if  you  like." 

The  two  referees  drew  apart  and  laid  their  heads  to- 
gether. 

"As  property  is  going  here  just  now,  fifty  dollars  for 
the  inside  lots,  and  one  hundred  dollars  apiece  for  the 
corners;  say  three  thousand  for  the  plot.  And  that  ia 
just  about  three  times  as  much  as  anybody  but  a  land- 
crazy  idiot  would  give  for  it."  It  was  Frazee  who  an- 
nounced the  decision. 


236  THE   GRAFTERS 

"Thank  you  both  until  you  are  better  paid.  Now 
we'll  go  back  to  town  and  you  can  write  me  a  joint  let- 
ter stating  the  fact.  If  you  think  it  will  get  you  dis- 
liked here  at  home,  make  the  figure  higher;  make  it 
high  enough  so  that  all  Gaston  will  be  dead  sure  to  ap- 
prove." 

"You  are  going  to  print  it?"  asked  the  Building  and 
Loan  appraiser. 

"I  may  want  to.  You  may  shape  it  to  that  end." 

"I'll  stand  by  my  figures,"  said  Frazee.  "It  will 
give  me  my  little  chance  to  get  back  at  the  governor. 
I  had  it  assessed  as  unimproved  suburban  property  at 
so  much  the  lot,  but  he  made  a  kick  to  the  board  of 
equalization  and  got  it  put  in  as  unimproved  farm  land 
at  fifty  dollars  an  acre."  Then,  looking  at  his  watch: 
"We'd  better  be  getting  back,  if  you  have  to  catch  the 
Accommodation.  Won't  you  stay  over  and  visit  with 
us?" 

"I  can't,  this  time;  much  obliged,"  said  Kent;  and 
they  drove  to  the  Building  and  Loan  office  where  the 
joint  letter  of  appraisal  was  written  and  signed. 

Kent  caught  his  train  with  something  to  spare,  and 
was  back  at  the  capital  in  good  time  to  keep  a  dinner 
engagement  at  Miss  Van  Brock's.  He  had  understood 
that  Ormsby  would  be  the  only  other  guest.  But  Por- 
tia had  a  little  surprise  in  store  for  him.  Loring  had 
dropped  in,  unannounced,  from  the  East;  and  For- 


DOWN,    BRUNO!  237 

tia,  having  first  ascertained  that  Mrs.  Brentwood's 
asthma  was  prohibitive  of  late  dinings-out,  had  in- 
structed Ormsby  to  bring  Elinor  and  Penelope. 

Kent  had  been  saving  the  results  of  his  deep-sea 
divings  in  the  oil-'field  investigation  to  spread  them  out 
before  Miss  Van  Brock  and  Ormsby  "in  committee," 
but  he  put  a  padlock  on  his  lips  when  he  saw  the  others. 

Portia  gave  him  Elinor  to  take  out,  and  he  would 
have  rejoiced  brazenly  if  the  table  talk,  from  the  bouil- 
lon to  the  ices,  had  not  been  persistently  general,  turn- 
ing most  naturally  upon  the  Universal  Oil  Company's 
successful  coup  in  the  Belmount  field.  Kent  kept  out 
of  it  as  much  as  he  could,  striving  manfully  to  monopo- 
lize Elinor  for  his  own  especial  behoof;  but  finally 
Portia  laid  her  commands  upon  him. 

"You  are  not  to  be  allowed  to  maroon  yourself  with 
Miss  Brentwood  any  longer,"  she  said  dictatorially. 
"You  know  more  about  the  unpublished  part  of  this 
Belmount  conspiracy  than  any  one  else  excepting  the 
conspirators  themselves,  and  you  are  to  tell  us  all  about 
it." 

Kent  looked  up  rather  helplessly. 

"Really,  I — I'm  not  sure  that  I  know  anything  worth 
repeating  at  your  dinner-table,"  he  protested. 

But  Miss  Van  Brock  made  a  mock  of  his  caution. 

"You  needn't  be  afraid.  I  pledged  everybody  to  se- 
crecy before  you  came.  It  is  understood  that  we  are  in 


238  THE   GRAFTERS 

'executive  session.'  And  if  you  don't  know  much,  you 
may  tell  us  what  you  know  now  more  than  you  knew 
before  you  knew  so  little  as  you  know  now." 

"Hold  on,"  said  Kent ;  "will  you  please  say  that  over 
again  and  say  it  slowly  ?" 

"Never  mind,"  laughed  Ormsby.  "Miss  Portia  has 
a  copyright  on  that.  But  before  you  begin,  I'd  like  to 
know  if  the  newspapers  have  it  straight  as  far  as  they 
have  gone  into  it  ?" 

"They  have,  all  but  one  small  detail.  They  are  say- 
ing that  Senator  Duvall  has  left  the  city  and  the  State." 

"Hasn't  he?"  Loring  asked! 

"He  hadn't  yesterday." 

"My-oh!"  said  Portia.  "They  will  mob  him  if  he 
shows  himself." 

Kent  nodded  assent. 

"He  knows  it:  he  is  hiding  out.    But  I  found  him." 

"Where?"  from  the  three  women  in  chorus. 
.  "In  his  own  house,  out  in  Pentland  Place.  The  fam- 
ily has  been  away  since  April,  and  the  place  has  been 
shut  up.    I  took  him  the  first  meal  he'd  had  in  thirty- 
six  hours." 

Portia  clapped  her  hands.  The  butler  came  in  with 
the  coffee  and  she  dismissed  him  and  bade  him  shut  the 
doors. 

"Now  begin  at  the  very  tip  end  of  the  beginning," 
she  commanded. 


DOWN,   BRUNO!  239 

Kent  had  a  sharp  little  tussle  with  his  inhorn  reti- 
cence, thrust  it  to  the  wall  and  told  a  plain  tale. 

"It  begins  in  a  piece  of  reckless  folly.  Shortly  after 
I  left  Mrs.  Brentwood's  last  Thursday  evening  I  had  a 
curious  experience.  The  shortest  way  down-town  is 
diagonally  through  the  capitol  grounds,  but  some  un- 
definable  impulse  led  me  to  go  around  on  the  Capitol 
Avenue  side.  As  I  was  passing  the  right  wing  of  the 
building  I  saw  lights  in  the  governor's  room,  and  in  a 
sudden  fit  of  desperation  resolved  to  go  up  and  have  it 
out  with  Bucks.  It  was  abnormally  foolish,  I'll  con- 
fess. I  had  nothing  definite  to  go  on;  but  I — well,  I 
was  keyed  up  to  just  about  the  right  pitch,  and  I 
thought  I  might  bluff  him." 

"Mercy  me!  You  do  need  a  guardian  angel  worse 
than  anybody  I  know !"  Portia  cut  in.  "Do  go  on." 

Kent  nodded. 

"I  had  one  that  night;  angel  or  demon,  whichever 
you  please.  I  was  fairly  dragged  into  doing  what  I 
did.  When  I  reached  the  upper  corridor  the  door  of 
the  public  anteroom  was  ajar,  and  I  heard  voices.  The 
outer  room  was  not  lighted,  but  the  door  between  it  and 
the  governor's  private  office  was  open.  I  went  in  and 
stood  in  that  open  doorway  for  as  much  as  five  minutes, 
I  think,  and  none  of  the  four  men  sitting  around  the 
governor's  writing-table  saw  me." 


240  THE   GEAFTEES 

He  had  his  small  audience  well  in  hand  by  this  time, 
and  Ormsby's  question  was  almost  mechanical. 
"Who  were  the  four?" 

"After  the  newspaper  rapid-fire  of  this  morning  you 
might  guess  them  all.  They  were  his  Excellency,  Graf- 
ton  Hendricks,  Bumford,  and  Senator  Duvall.  They 
were  in  the  act  of  closing  the  deal  as  I  became  an  on- 
looker. Eumford  had  withdrawn  his  application  for 
a  charter,  and  another  'straw'  company  had  been  formed 
with  Duvall  at  its  head.  I  saw  at  once  what  I  fancy 
Duvall  never  suspected;  that  he  was  going  to  be  made 
the  scapegoat  for  the  ring.  They  all  promised  to  stand 
by  him — and  you  see  how  that  promise  has  been  kept." 
"Good  heavens!"  ejaculated  Loring.  "What  a  des- 
picable lot  of  scoundrels!  But  the  bribe:  did  you 
learn  anything  about  that?" 

"I  saw  it,"  said  Kent,  impressively.  "It  was  a  slip 
of  paper  passed  across  the  table  by  Eumford  to  Bucks, 
face  down.  Bucks  glanced  at  it  before  he  thrust  it  into 
his  pocket,  and  I  had  my  glimpse,  too.  It  was  a  draft 
on  a  Chicago  bank,  but  I  could  not  read  the  figures,  and 
I  doubt  if  either  of  the  other  conspirators  knew  the 
amount.  Then  the  governor  tossed  a  folded  paper  over 
to  the  oil  man,  saying,  'There  is  your  deed  to  the  choic- 
est piece  of  property  in  all  Gaston,  and  you've  got  it 
dirt  cheap.'  I  came  away  at  that." 


DOWN,   BRUNO!  241 

Elinor's  sigh  was  almost  a  sob ;  but  Miss  Van  Brock's 
eyes  were  dancing. 

"Go  on,  go  on/'  she  exclaimed.  "That  is  only  the 
beginning." 

Kent's  smile  was  of  reminiscent  weariness. 

"I  found  it  so,  I  assure  you.  So  far  as  any  usable 
evidence  was  concerned,  I  was  no  b'etter  off  than  before ; 
it  was  merely  my  assertion  against  their  denial— one 
man  against  four.  But  I  have  had  a  full  week,  and  it 
has  not  been  wasted.  I  needn't  bore  you  with  the  me- 
chanical details.  One  of  my  men  followed  Bucks'  mes- 
senger to  Chicago — he  wouldn't  trust  the  banks  here 
or  the  mails — and  we  know  now,  know  it  in  black  on 
white,  with  the  proper  affidavits,  that  the  draft  was  for 
two  hundred  thousand  dollars,  payable  to  the  order  of 
Jasper  G.  Bucks.  The  ostensible  consideration  was  the 
transfer  from  Bucks  to  Rumford  of  a  piece  of  property 
in  the  outskirts  of  Gaston.  I  had  this  piece  of  land  ap- 
praised for  me  to-day  by  two  disinterested  citizens  of 
Gaston,  and  they  valued  it  at  a  possible,  but  highly  im- 
probable, three  thousand." 

"Oh,  how  clumsy !"  said  Portia,  in  fine  scorn.  "Does 
his  Excellency  imagine  for  a  moment  that  any  one 
would  be  deceived  by  such  a  primitive  bit  of  dust-throw- 
ing ?"  and  Ormsby  also  had  something  to  say  about  the 
fatal  mistakes  of  the  shrewdest  criminals. 


243  THE    GRAFTERS 

"It  was  not  so  bad,"  said  Kent.  "If  it  should  ever 
be  charged  that  he  took  money  from  Rumford,  here  is  a 
plain  business  transaction  to  account  for  it.  The  deed, 
as  recorded,  has  nothing  to  say  of  the  enormous  price 
paid.  The  phrasing  is  the  common  form  used  when 
the  parties  to  the  transfer  do  not  wish  to  make  the  price 
public :  'For  one  dollar  to  me  in  hand  paid,  and  other 
valuable  considerations.'  Luckily,  we  are  able  to  es- 
tablish conclusively  what  the  'other  valuable  considera- 
tions' were." 

"It  seems  to  me  that  these  documents  arm  and  equip 
you  for  anything  you  want  to  do/'  said  Loring,  polish- 
ing his  eye-glasses  after  his  ingrained  habit. 

Kent  shook  his  head. 

"No;  thus  far  the  evidence  is  all  circumstantial,  or 
rather  inferential.  But  I  picked  up  the  final  link  in 
the  chain — the  human  link — yesterday.  One  of  the  de- 
tectives had  been  dogging  Duvall.  Two  days  ago  the 
senator  disappeared,  unaccountably.  I  put  two  and  two 
together,  and  late  last  evening  took  the  liberty  of  break- 
ing into  his  house." 

"Alone?"  said  Elinor,  with  the  courage- worshiping 
light  in  the  blue-gray  eyes. 

"Yes;  it  didn't  seem  worth  while  to  double  the  risk. 
I  did  it  rather  clumsily,  I  suppose,  and  my  greeting  was 
a  shot  fired  at  random  in  the  darkness — the  senator 
mistaking  me  for  a  burglar,  as  he  afterward  explained. 


DOWN,   BKTOO!  243 

There  was  no  harm  done,  and  the  pistol  welcome  effect- 
ually broke  the  ice  in  what  might  otherwise  have  been 
a  rather  difficult  interview.  We  had  it  out  in  an  upper 
room,  with  the  gas  turned  low  and  the  window  curtains 
drawn.  To  cut  a  long  story  short,  I  finally  succeeded  in 
making  him  understand  what  he  was  in  for;  that  his 
confederates  had  used  him  and  thrown  him  aside.  Then 
I  went  out  and  brought  him  some  supper." 

Ormsby  smote  softly  upon  the  edge  of  the  table  with 
an  extended  forefinger. 

"Will  he  testify?"  he  asked. 

Kent's  rejoinder  was  definitive. 

"He  has  put  himself  entirely  in  my  hands.  He  is  a 
ruined  man,  politically  and  socially,  and  he  is  desperate. 
While  I  couldn't  make  him  give  me  any  of  the  details 
in  the  Trans- Western  affair,  he  made  a  clean  breast  of 
the  oil  field  deal,  and  I  have  his  statement  locked  up 
with  the  other  papers  in  the  Security  vaults." 

It  was  Penelope  who  gave  David  Kent  his  due  meed 
of  praise. 

"I  am  neither  a  triumphant  politician  nor  a  success- 
ful detective,  but  I  recognize  both  when  they  are  pointed 
out  to  me,"  she  said.  "Mr.  Kent,  will  you  serve  these 
gentlemen  up  hot  for  dinner,  or  cold  for  luncheon  ?" 

"Yes,"  Portia  chimed  in.  "You  have  outrun  your 
pace-setters,  and  I'm  proud  of  you.  Tell  us  what  you 
mean  to  do  next." 


244  THE   GEAFTEES 

Kent  laughed. 

"You  want  to  make  me  say  some  melodramatic  thing 
about  having  the  shackles  forged  and  snapping  them 
upon  the  gubernatorial  wrists,  don't  you?  It  will  be 
prosaic  enough  from  this  on.  I  fancy  we  shall  have  no 
difficulty  now  in  convincing  his  Excellency  of  the  jus- 
tice of  our  proceedings  to  quash  Judge  MacFarlane  and 
his  receiver." 

"But  how  will  you  go  about  it?  Surely  you  can  not 
go  personally  and  threaten  the  governor  of  the  State !" 
this  from  Miss  Brentwood. 

"Can't  I?"  said  Kent.  "Having  the  score  written 
out  and  safely  committed  to  memory,  that  will  be  quite 
the  easiest  number  on  the  programme,  I  assure  you." 

But  Loring  had  something  to  say  about  the  risk. 

"Thus  far  you  have  not  considered  your  personal 
safety — haven't  had  to,  perhaps.  But  you  are  coming 
to  that  now.  You  are  dealing  with  a  desperate  man, 
David ;  with  a  gang  of  them,  in  fact." 

"That  is  so,"  said  Ormsby.  "And,  as  chairman  of 
the  executive  committee,  I  shall  have  to  take  steps. 
We  can't  afford  to  bury  you  just  yet,  Kent." 

"I  think  you  needn't  select  the  pall-bearers  yet  a 
while,"  laughed  the  undaunted  one;  and  then  Miss 
Van  Brock  gave  the  signal  and  the  "executive  com- 
mittee" adjourned  to  the  drawing-room.  Here  the  talk, 
already  so  deeply  channeled  in  the  groove  political,  ran 


DOWN,   BRUNO!  245 

easily  to  forecastings  and  predictions  for  another  elec- 
toral year;  and  when  Penelope  began  to  yawn  behind 
her  fan,  Ormsby  took  pity  on  her  and  the  party  broke 
up. 

It  was  at  the  moment  of  leave-taking  that  Elinor 
sought  and  found  her  chance  to  extract  a  promise  from 
David  Kent. 

"I  must  have  a  word  with  you  before  you  do  what 
you  say  you  are  going  to  do,"  she  whispered  hurriedly. 
"Will  you  come  to  see  me  ?" 

"Certainly,  if  you  wish  it.  But  you  mustn't  let  Lor- 
ing's  nervousness  infect  you.  There  is  no  danger." 

"There  is  a  danger,"  she  insisted,  "a  much  greater 
danger  than  the  one  Mr.  Loring  fears.  Come  as  soon  as 
you  can,  won't  you?" 

It  was  a  new  thing  for  her  to  plead  with  him,  and  he 
promised  in  an  access  of  tumultuous  hope  reawakened 
by  her  changed  attitude.  But  afterward,  when  he  was 
walking  down-town  with  Loring,  the  episode  troubled 
him  a  little;  would  have  troubled  him  more  if  he  had 
not  been  so  deeply  interested  in  Loring's  story  of  the 
campaign  in  the  East. 

Taking  it  all  in  all,  the  ex-manager's  report  was  en- 
couraging. The  New  Englanders  were  by  no  means 
disposed  to  lie  down  in  the  harness,  and  since  the  West- 
ern Pacific  proper  was  an  interstate  line,  the  Advisory 
Board  had  taken  its  grievance  to  Washington.  Many 


246  THE    GEAFTEES 

of  the  small  stockholders  were  standing  firm,  though 
there  had  been  panicky  defections  in  spite  of  all  that 
could  be  done.  Loring  had  no  direct  evidence  to  sus- 
tain the  stock  deal  theory;  but  it  was  morally  certain 
that  the  Plantagould  brokers  were  picking  up  Western 
Pacific  by  littles  wherever  they  could  find  it. 

"I  am  inclined  to  believe  we  haven't  much  time  to 
lose/'  was  Kent's  comment.  "Things  will  focus  here 
long  before  Washington  can  get  action.  The  other 
lines  are  bringing  a  tremendous  pressure  to  bear  on 
Guilford,  whose  cut  rates  are  demoralizing  business 
frightfully.  The  fictitious  boom  in  Trans- Western  traffic 
is  about  worked  out;  and  for  political  reasons  Bucks 
can't  afford  to  have  the  road  in  the  hands  of  his  hench- 
men when  the  collapse  comes.  The  major  is  bolstering 
things  from  week  to  week  now  until  the  Plantagould 
people  get  what  they  are  after — a  controlling  majority 
of  the  stock — and  then  Judge  MacFarlane  will  come 
back." 

They  were  within  two  squares  of  the  Clarendon,  and 
the  cross-street  was  deserted  save  for  a  drunken  cow- 
boy in  shaps  and  sombrero  staggering  aimlessly  around 
the  corner. 

"That's  curious,"  Loring  remarked.  "Don't  you 
know,  I  saw  that  same  fellow,  or  his  double,  lurching 
across  the  avenue  as  we  came  out  of  Alameda  Square, 
and  I  wondered  what  he  was  doing  out  in  that  region." 


DOWN,   BKUNO!  247 

"It  was  his  double,  I  guess,"  said  Kent.  "This  one 
is  many  pegs  too  drunk  to  have  covered  the  distance  as 
fast  as  we  have  been  walking." 

But  drunk  or  sober,  the  cow-boy  turned  up  again 
most  unexpectedly;  this  time  at  the  entrance  of  the 
alley  half-way  down  the  block.  In  passing  he  stumbled 
heavily  against  Kent;  there  was  a  thick-tongued  oath, 
and  Loring  struck  out  smartly  with  his  walking-stick. 
By  consequence  the  man's  pistol  went  off  harmlessly  in 
the  air.  The  shot  brought  a  policeman  lumbering  heav- 
ily up  from  the  street  beyond,  and  the  skirling  of  relief 
whistles  shrilled  on  the  night.  But  the  man  with  a 
pistol  had  twisted  out  of  Kent's  grasp  and  was  gone  in 
a  flash. 

"By  Jove !"  said  Loring,  breathing  hard ;  "he  wasn't 
as  drunk  as  he  seemed  to  be !" 

Kent  drew  down  his  cuffs  and  shook  himself  straight 
in  his  coat. 

"No ;  he  wasn't  drunk  at  all ;  I  guess  he  was  the  man 
you  saw  when  we  came  out  of  the  square."  Then,  as 
the  policeman  came  up  puffing:  "Let  me  do  the  talk- 
ing; the  whisky  theory  will  be  good  enough  for  the 
newspapers." 


XIX 

DEEP-SEA  SOUNDINGS 

"Oof!  I  feel  as  if  I  had  been  dipped  in  a  warm  bath 
of  conspiracy  and  hung  up  to  dry  in  the  cold  storage 
of  nihilism !  If  you  take  me  to  any  more  meetings  of 
your  committee  of  safety,  I  shall  be  like  the  man  with- 
out music  in  his  soul — 'fit  for  treasons,  stratagems  and 
spoils.' " 

Thus  Penelope,  after  the  breaking  up  of  the  Van 
Brock  dinner  party.  Elinor  had  elected  to  walk  the 
few  blocks  intervening  between  Alameda  Square  and 
Tejon  Avenue,  and  Ormsby  had  dismissed  his  chauffeur 
with  the  motor-car. 

"I  told  you  beforehand  it  was  going  to  be  a  political 
confab,"  said  the  club-man  in  self-defense.  "And  you 
mustn't  treat  it  lightly,  either.  Ten  prattling  words 
of  what  you  have  heard  to-night  set  afloat  on  the  gossip 
pool  of  this  town  might  make  it  pretty  difficult  for  our 
David." 

"We  are  not  very  likely  to  babble,"  retorted  Penelope. 
(248) 


DEEP-SEA    SOUNDINGS  249 

"We  are  not  so  rich  in  intimates  in  this  aboriginal 
desert."  But  Elinor  spoke  to  the  penal  clause  in  his 
warning. 

"Then  Mr.  Kent's  danger  is  more  real  than  he  ad- 
mitted?" she  said. 

"It's  real  enough,  I  fancy;  more  real  for  him  than 
it  might  be  for  another  man  in  his  place.  He  is  a 
curious  combination,  is  David:  keen  and  sharp-witted 
and  as  cold  as  an  icicle  in  the  planning  part ;  but  when 
it  comes  to  the  in-fighting  he  hasn't  sense  enough  to 
pound  sand,  as  his  New  Hampshire  neighbors  would 
say." 

"I  like  that  side  of  him  best,"  Penelope  averred. 
"Deliver  me  from  a  man  of  the  cold  and  calculating 
sort  who  sits  on  his  impulses,  sleeps  on  his  injuries,  and 
takes  money-revenge  for  an  insult.  Mr.  Loring  tells  a 
story  of  a  transplanted  Vermonter  in  South  America. 
A  hot-headed  Peruvian  called  him  a  liar,  and  he  said: 
'Oh,  pshaw !  you  can't  prove  it.' " 

"What  a  merciless  generalizer  you  are !"  said  Ormsby, 
laughing.  "The  man  who  marries  you  will  have  his 
work  cut  out  for  him  if  he  proposes  to  fill  the  require- 
ments." 

"Won't  he  ?"  said  Penelope.  "I  can  fancy  him  sitting 
up  nights  to  figure  it  all  out." 

They  had  reached  the  Tejon  Avenue  apartment  house, 
and  to  Elinor's  "Won't  you  come  in?"  Ormsby  said: 


250  THE   GRAFTERS 

• 

"It's  pretty  late,  but  I'll  smoke  a  cigar  on  the  porch,  if 
you'll  let  me." 

Penelope  took  the  hammock,  but  she  kept  it  only 
during  the  first  inch  of  Ormsby's  cigar.  After  her 
sister  had  gone  in,  Elinor  went  back  to  the  lapsed 
topic. 

"I  am  rather  concerned  about  Mr.  Kent.  You  de- 
scribed him  exactly;  and — well,  he  is  past  the  plan- 
ning part  and  into  the  fighting  part.  Do  you  think 
he  will  take  ordinary  precautions?" 

"I  hope  so,  I'm  sure,"  rejoined  the  amateur  chair- 
man. "As  his  business  manager  I  am  responsible  for 
him,  after  a  fashion.  I  was  glad  to  see  Loring  to-night 
— glad  he  has  come  back.  Kent  defers  to  him  more  than 
he  does  to  any  one  else;  and  Loring  is  a  solid,  sober- 
minded  sort." 

"Yes"  she  agreed;  "I  was  glad,  too." 

After  that  the  talk  languished,  and  the  silence  was 
broken  only  by  the  distant  droning  of  an  electric  car, 
the  fizz  and  click  of  the  arc  light  over  the  roadway,  and 
the  occasional  dap  of  one  the  great  beetles  darting 
hither  and  thither  in  the  glare. 

Ormsby  was  wondering  if  the  time  was  come  for  the 
successful  exploiting  of  an  idea  which  had  been  grow- 
ing on  him  steadily  for  weeks,  not  to  say  months. 

It  was  becoming  more  and  more  evident  to  him  that 
he  was  not  advancing  in  the  sentimental  siege  beyond 


DEEP-SEA   SOUNDINGS  251 

the  first  parallel  thrown  up  so  skilfully  on  the  last  night 
of  the  westward  journey.  It  was  not  that  Elinor  was 
lacking  in  loyalty  or  in  acquiescence;  she  scrupulously 
gave  him  both  as  an  accepted  suitor.  But  though  he 
could  not  put  his  finger  upon  the  precise  thing  said  or 
done  which  marked  the  loosening  of  his  hold,  he  knew 
he  was  receding  rather  than  advancing. 

Now  to  a  man  of  expedients  the  interposition  of  an 
obstacle  suggests  only  ways  and  means  for  overcoming 
it.  Ormsby  had  certain  clear-cut  convictions  touching 
the  subjugation  of  women,  and  as  his  stout  heart  gave 
him  resolution  he  lived  up  to  them.  When  he  spoke 
again  it  was  of  the  matter  which  concerned  him  most 
deeply;  and  his  plea  was  a  gentle  repetition  of  many 
others  in  the  same  strain. 

"Elinor,  I  have  waited  patiently  for  a  long  time,  and 
I'll  go  on  doing  it,  if  that  is  what  will  come  the  nearest 
to  pleasing  you.  But  it  would  be  a  prodigious  comfort 
if  I  might  be  counting  the  days  or  the  weeks.  Are  you 
still  finding  it  impossible  to  set  the  limit?" 

She  nodded  slowly,  and  he  took  the  next  step  like 
a  man  feeling  his  way  in  the  dark. 

"That  is  as  large  an  answer  as  you  have  ever  given 
me,  I  think.  Is  there  any  speakable  reason?" 

"You  know  the  reason,"  she  said,  looking  away  from 
him. 

"I  am  not  sure  that  I  do.    Is  it  because  the  money- 


253  THE    GEAFTEKS 

gods  have  been  unpropitious — because  these  robber 
barons  have  looted  your  railroad?" 

"No;  that  is  only  part  of  it — the  smallest  part." 

"I  hoped  so:  if  you  have  too  little,  I  have  a  good 
bit  too  much.  But  that  corners  it  in  a  way  to  make 
me  sorry.  I  am  not  keeping  my  promise  to  win  what 
you  weren't  able  to  give  me  at  first." 

"Please  don't  put  it  that  way.  If  there  be  any  fault, 
it  is  mine.  You  have  left  nothing  undone." 

The  man  of  expedients  ran  over  his  cards  reflectively 
and  decided  that  the  moment  for  playing  his  long  suit 
was  fully  come. 

"Your  goodness  of  heart  excuses  me  where  I  am  to 
blame,"  he  qualified.  "I  am  coming  to  believe  that  I 
have  defeated  my  own  cause." 

"By  being  too  good  to  me?"  she  suggested. 

"No;  by  running  where  I  should  have  been  content 
to  walk;  by  shackling  you  with  a  promise,  and  so  in 
a  certain  sense  becoming  your  jailer.  That  is  putting 
it  rather  clumsily,  but  isn't  it  true?" 

"I  had  never  thought  of  it  in  that  light,"  she  said 
unresponsively. 

"You  wouldn't,  naturally.  But  the  fact  remains. 
It  has  wrenched  your  point  of  view  hopelessly  aside, 
don't  you  think?  I  have  seen  it  and  felt  it  all  along, 
but  I  haven't  had  the  courage  of  my  convictions." 


DEEP-SEA   SOUNDINGS  253 

"In  what  way?"  she  asked. 

"In  the  only  way  the  thing  can  be  stood  squarely 
upon  its  feet.  It's  hard — desperately  hard ;  and  hardest 
of  all  for  a  man  of  my  peculiar  build.  I  am  no  longer 
what  you  would  call  a  young  man,  Elinor,  and  I  have 
never  learned  to  turn  back  and  begin  all  over  again 
with  any  show  of  heartiness.  They  used  to  say  of  me 
in  the  Yacht  Club  that  if  I  gained  a  half-length  in 
a  race,  I'd  hold  it  if  it  took  the  sticks  out  of  my  boat." 

"I  know,"  she  assented  absently. 

"Well,  it's  the  same  way  now.  But  for  your  sake — 
or  rather  for  the  sake  of  my  love — I  am  going  to  turn 
back  for  once.  You  are  free  again,  Elinor.  All  I 
ask  is  that  you  will  let  me  begin  where  I  left  off  some- 
where on  the  road  between  here  and  Boston  last  fall." 

She  sat  with  clasped  hands  looking  steadily  at  the 
darkened  windows  of  the  opposite  house,  and  he  let 
her  take  her  own  time.  When  she  spoke  there  was  a 
thrill  in  her  voice  that  he  had  never  heard  before. 

"I  don't  deserve  it — so  much  consideration,  I  mean," 
she  said ;  and  he  made  haste  to  spare  her. 

"Yes,  you  do;  you  deserve  anything  the  best  man 
in  the  world  could  do  for  you,  and  I'm  a  good  bit  short 
of  that." 

"But  if  I  don't  want  you  to  go  back  ?" 

He  had  gained  something — much  more  than  he  knew ; 


254  THE   GRAFTERS 

and  for  a  tremulous  instant  he  was  near  to  losing  it 
again  by  a  passionate  retraction  of  all  lie  had  been  say- 
ing. But  the  cool  purpose  came  to  his  rescue  in  time. 

"I  should  still  insist  on  doing  it.  You  gave  me  what 
you  could,  but  I  want  more,  and  I  am  willing  to  do 
what  is  necessary  to  win  it." 

Again  she  said :  "You  are  too  good  to  me,"  and  again 
he  contradicted  her. 

"No;  it  is  hardly  a  question  of  goodness;  indeed,  I 
am  not  sure  that  it  escapes  being  selfish.  But  I  am 
very  much  in  earnest,  and  I  am  going  to  prove  it. 
Three  years  ago  you  met  a  man  whom  you  thought  you 
could  love — don't  interrupt  me,  please.  He  was  like 
some  other  men  we  know :  he  didn't  have  the  courage  of 
his  convictions,  lacking  the  few  dollars  which  might 
have  made  things  more  nearly  equal.  May  I  go  on  ?" 

"I  .suppose  you  have  earned  the  right  to  say  what 
you  please,"  was  the  impassive  reply. 

It  was  the  old  struggle  in  which  they  were  so  evenly 
matched — of  the  woman  to  preserve  her  poise;  of  the 
man  to  break  it  down.  Another  lover  might  have  given 
up  in  despair,  but  Ormsby's  strength  lay  in  holding 
on  in  the  face  of  all  discouragements. 

"I  believe,  as  much  as  I  believe  anything  in  this 
world,  that  you  were  mistaken  in  regard  to  your  feel- 
ing for  the  other  man,"  he  went  on  calmly.  "But  I 


DEEP-SEA    SOUNDINGS  255 

want  you  to  be  sure  of  that  for  yourself,  and  you  can't 
be  sure  unless  you  are  free  to  choose  between  us." 

"Oh,  don't! — you  shouldn't  say  such  things  to  me," 
she  broke  out ;  and  then  he  knew  he  was  gaining  ground. 

"Yes,  I  must.  We  have  been  stumbling  around  in 
the  dark  all  these  months,  and  I  mean  to  be  the  lan- 
tern-bearer for  once  in  a  way.  You  know,  and  I  know, 
and  Kent  is  coming  to  know.  That  man  is  going  to 
be  a  success,  Elinor:  he  has  it  in  him,  and  he  sha'n't 
lack  the  money-backing  he  may  need.  When  he  ar- 
rives— " 

She  turned  on  him  quickly,  and  the  blue-gray  eyes 
were  suspiciously  bright. 

"Please  don't  bury  me  alive,"  she  begged. 

He  saw  what  he  had  done ;  that  the  nicely  calculated 
purpose  had  carried  straight  and  true  to  its  mark ;  and 
for  a  moment  the  mixed  motives,  which  are  at  the  bot- 
tom of  most  human  sayings  and  doings,  surged  in  him 
like  the  sea  at  the  vexed  tide-line  of  an  iron-bound 
coast.  But  it  was  the  better  Brookes  Ormsby  that 
struggled  up  out  of  the  elemental  conflict. 

"Don't  mistake  me,"  he  said.  "I  am  neither  bet- 
ter nor  worse  than  other  men,  I  fancy.  My  motives, 
such  as  they  are,  would  probably  turn  out  to  be  purely 
selfish  in  the  last  analysis.  I  am  proceeding  on  the  the- 
ory that  constraint  breeds  the  desire  for  the  thing  it  for- 


256  THE   GRAFTERS 

bids;  therefore  I  remove  it.  Also,  it  is  a  part  of  that 
theory  that  the  successful  David  Kent  will  not  appeal 
to  you  as  the  unspoiled  country  lawyer  did.  No,  I'm 
not  going  to  spoil  him;  if  I  were,  I  shouldn't  be  tell- 
ing you  about  it.  But — may  I  be  brutally  frank  ? — the 
David  Kent  who  will  come  successfully  out  of  this  po- 
litical prize-fight  will  not  be  the  man  you  have  ideal- 
ized." 

There  was  a  muttering  of  thunder  in  the  air,  and 
the  cool  precursory  breeze  of  a  shower  was  sweeping 
through  the  tree-tops. 

"Shall  we  go  into  the  house?"  she  asked;  and  he 
took  it  as  his  dismissal. 

"You  may;  I  have  kept  you  up  long  enough."  And 
then,  taking  her  hand:  "Are  we  safely  ashore  on  the 
new  continent,  Elinor?  May  I  come  and  go  as  here- 
tofore?" 

"You  were  always  welcome,  Brookes;  you  will  be 
twice  welcome,  now." 

It  was  the  first  time  she  had  ever  called  him  by  his 
Christian  name  and  it  went  near  to  toppling  down  the 
carefully  reared  structure  of  self-restraint.  But  he  made 
shift  to  shore  the  tottering  walls  with  a  playful  retort. 

"If  that  is  the  case,  I'll  have  to  think  up  some  more 
Belf-abnegations.  Good  night." 


XX 

THE  WINNING  LOSER 

Editor  Hildreth's  prophecy  concerning  the  probable 
attitude  of  the  administration  newspapers  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  oil  field  affair  waited  but  a  day  for  its 
fulfilment.  On  the  Friday  morning  there  appeared  in 
the  Capital  Tribune,  the  Midland  City  Chronicle,  the 
Range  County  Maverick  and  the  Agriculta  Ruralist 
able  editorials  exonerating  the  People's  Party,  its  policy 
and  the  executive,  and  heaping  mountains  of  obloquy 
on  the  name  of  Duvall.  These  editorials  were  so  simi- 
lar in  tone,  tenor  and  texture,  as  pointedly  to  suggest 
a  common  model — a  coincidence  which  was  not  allowed 
to  pass  unremarked  by  Hildreth  and  other  molders 

C  «/ 

of  public  opinion  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  political 
fence. 

But  Hildreth  did  not  pause  at  generalities.     Two 

days  after  the  Universal^  triumph  in  the  Belmount 

field,  the  Argus  began  to  "hit  it  up"  boldly  toward  the 

capitol,  and  two  things  came  of  it.    The  first  was  an 

(257) 


258  THE    GKAFTERS 

attempt  by  some  party  or  parties  unknown  to  buy  up  a 
controlling  interest  in  the  Argus.  The  second  was  the 
waylaying  of  David  Kent  in  the  lobby  of  the  Clarendon 
Hotel  by  no  less  a  personage  than  the  Honorable  Mel- 
ton Meigs,  attorney-general  of  the  State. 

In  his  first  conversation  with  Ormsby,  Kent  had 
spoken  of  the  three  leading  spirits  of  the  junto  as  from 
personal  knowledge ;  but  of  the  three,  Bucks,  Hen- 
dricks  and  Meigs,  the  attorney-general  was  the  least 
known  to  him.  Prior  to  his  nomination  on  the 
State  ticket  Meigs  had  been  best  known  as  the  most 
astute  criminal  lawyer  in  the  State,  his  astuteness  lying 
not  so  much  in  his  ability  as  a  pleader  as  in  a  certain 
oratorical  gift  by  which  he  was  able  to  convince  not 
only  a  jury  but  the  public  of  the  entire  innocence  of 
his  client. 

He  was  a  small  man  physically,  with  womanish  hands 
and  feet,  and  a  beardless  face  of  that  prematurely 
aged  cast  which  is  oftenest  seen  in  dwarfs  and  pre- 
cocious infants;  and  his  distinguishing  characteristic, 
the  one  which  stuck  longest  in  the  mind  of  a  chance 
acquaintance  or  a  casual  observer,  was  a  smile  of  the 
congealed  sort  which  served  to  mask  whatever  emotion 
there  might  be  behind  it. 

Kent  had  seen  little  of  Meigs  since  the  latter  had 
turned  him  down  in  the  quo  warranto  matter;  and  his 
guard  went  up  quickly  when  the  attorney-general  a~- 


THE    WINNING   LOSEE  259 

costed  him  in  the  lobby  of  the  hotel  and  asked  for  a 
private  interview. 

"I  am  very  much  occupied  just  now,  Mr.  Meigs,"  he 
demurred ;  "but  if  it  is  a  matter  of  importance — " 

"It  is;  a  matter  of  the  greatest  importance,"  was  the 
smooth-toned  reply.  "I  am  sure  you  will  not  regret 
it  if  you  will  give  me  a  few  moments,  Mr.  Kent." 

Kent  decided  quickly.  Being  forewarned,  there  was 
nothing  to  fear. 

"We  will  go  up  to  my  rooms,  if  you  please,"  he  said, 
leading  the  way  to  the  elevator;  and  no  other  word 
was  spoken  until  they  were  behind  closed  doors  on  the 
fourth  floor. 

"A  prefatory  remark  may  make  my  business  with 
you  seem  a  little  less  singular,  Mr.  Kent,"  Meigs  began, 
when  Kent  had  passed  his  cigar-case  and  the  attorney- 
general  had  apologized  for  a  weak  digestive  tract.  "On 
wholly  divergent  lines  and  from  wholly  different  mo- 
tives we  are  both  working  toward  the  same  end,  I  be- 
lieve, and  it  has  occurred  to  me  that  we  might  be  of 
some  assistance  to  each  other." 

Kent's  rejoinder  was  a  mute  signal  to  the  effect  that 
he  was  attending. 

"Some  little  time  ago  you  came  to  me  as  the  legal 
representative  of  the  stock-holders  of  the  Trans-West- 
ern Eailway  Company,  and  I  did  not  find  it  possible 
at  that  time  to  meet  your  wishes  in  the  matter  of  a 


260  THE    GEAFTEES 

quo  warranto  information  questioning  Judge  MacFar- 
lane's  election  and  status.  You  will  admit,  I  presume, 
that  your  demand  was  a  little  peremptory?" 

"I  admit  nothing,"  said  Kent,  curtly.  "But  for  the 
sake  of  expediting  present  matters — " 

"Precisely,"  was  the  smiling  rejoinder.  "You  will 
note  that  I  said  'at  that  time.'  Later  developments — 
more  especially  this  charge  made  openly  by  the  pub- 
lic press  of  juggling  with  foreign  corporations — have 
led  me  to  believe  that  as  the  public  prosecutor  I  may 
have  duties  which  transcend  all  other  considerations — 
of  loyalty  to  a  party  standard — of — " 

Kent  took  his  turn  at  interrupting. 

"Mr.  Meigs,  there  is  nothing  to  be  gained  by  indi- 
rection. May  I  ask  you  to  come  to  the  point?" 

"Briefly,  then:  the  course  pursued  by  Senator  Du- 
vall  in  the  Belmount  affair  leaves  an  unproved  charge 
against  others;  a  charge  which  I  am  determined  to 
sift  to  the  bottom — you  see,  I  am  speaking  quite  frankly. 
That  charge  involves  the  reputation  of  men  high  in 
authority;  but  I  shall  be  strong  to  do  my  sworn  duty, 
Mr.  Kent;  I  ask  you  to  believe  that." 

Kent  nodded  and  waved  him  on. 

"You  will  readily  understand  the  delicacy  of  the  task, 
and  how,  in  the  nature  of  things,  I  am  handicapped  and 
hedged  up  on  every  side.  Evidence — of  a  kind  to  enable 


THE    WINNING   LOSER  261 

me  to  assail  a  popular  idol — is  exceedingly  difficult  to 
procure." 

"It  is,"  said  Kent,  grimly. 

"Exactly.  But  in  revolving  the  matter  in  my  own 
mind,  I  thought  of  you.  You  are  known  at  the  capi- 
tol,  Mr.  Kent,  and  I  may  say  throughout  the  State,  as 
the  uncompromising  antagonist  of  the  State  adminis- 
tration. I  have  asked  myself  this:  Is  it  possible  that 
a  cool-headed,  resolute  attorney  like  Mr.  David  Kent 
would  move  so  far  and  so  determinedly  in  this  matter  of 
antagonism  without  substantially  paving  the  ground 
under  his  feet  with  evidence  as  he  went  along  ?" 

Kent  admitted  that  it  was  possible,  but  highly  im- 
probable. 

"So  I  decided,"  was  the  smile-tempered  rejoinder. 
"In  that  case  it  only  remains  for  me  to  remind  you  of 
your  public  duty,  Mr.  Kent ;  to  ask  you  in  the  name  of 
justice  and  of  the  people  of  the  State,  to  place  your  in- 
formation in  the  hands  of  the  public  prosecutor." 

Kent's  face  betrayed  nothing  more  than  his  appre- 
ciation of  the  confidence  reposed  in  him  by  the  man 
whose  high  sense  of  official  honor  was  making  him  turn 
traitor  to  the  party  leader  who  had  dragged  him 
through  a  successful  election. 

"I  have  what  evidence  I  need,  Mr.  Meigs,"  he  de- 
clared. "But  if  I  make  no  secret  of  this,  neither  do  I 


262  THE    GEAFTEES 

conceal  the  fact  that  the  motive  pro  lono  publico  has 
had  little  to  do  with  its  accumulating.  I  want  jus- 
tice first  for  what  might  be  called  a  purely  private  end, 
and  I  mean  to  have  it." 

"Pre-cisely,"  smiled  the  attorney-general.  "And  now 
we  are  beginning  to  see  our  way  a  little  clearer.  It  is 
not  too  late  for  us  to  move  in  the  quo  warranto  pro- 
ceedings. If  you  will  call  at  my  office  I  shall  be  glad 
to  reopen  the  matter  with  you." 

"And  the  price  ?"  said  Kent,  shortly. 

"Oh,  my  dear  sir!  must  we  put  it  upon  the  ground 
of  a  quid  pro  quo?  Eather  let  us  say  that  we  shall 
help  each  other.  You  are  in  a  position  to  assist  me 
very  materially:  I  may  be  in  a  position  to  serve  your 
turn.  Come  to  my  office  to-morrow  morning  prepared 
to  do  your  duty  as  an  honest,  loyal  citizen,  and  you 
will  find  me  quite  willing  to  meet  you  half-way." 

Kent  rose  and  opened  his  watch. 

"Mr.  Meigs,  I  have  given  you  your  opportunity,  and 
you  have  seemed  to  give  me  mine,"  he  said  coolly. 
"Will  you  pardon  me  if  I  say  that  I  can  paddle  my  own 
canoe — if  I  ask  you  to  assure  his  Excellency  that  one 
more  device  of  his  to  escape  punishment  has  been  tried 
and  found  wanting?" 

For  a  flitting  moment  the  cast-iron  smile  faded  from 
the  impassive  face  of  the  attorney-general  and  an  un- 


THE   WINNING   LOSEE  263 

relenting  devil  came  to  peer  out  of  the  colorless  eyes. 
Then  Meigs  rose  cat-like  and  laid  his  hand  on  the 
door-knob. 

"Do  I  understand  that  you  refuse  to  move  in  a  mat- 
ter which  should  be  the  first  duty  of  a  good  citizen, 
Mr.  Kent?"  he  asked  purringly. 

"I  certainly  do  refuse  to  fall  into  any  such  clumsy 
trap  as  you  have  been  trying  to  bait  for  me,  Mr. 
Meigs,"  said  David  Kent,  dropping  back  into  his 
former  curtness. 

The  door  opened  slowly  under  the  impulse  of  the 
slender  womanish  hand. 

"You  have  a  task  of  some  magnitude  before  you, 
Mr.  Kent.  You  can  scarcely  hope  to  accomplish  it 
alone." 

"Meaning  that  you  would  like  to  know  if  the  fight 
will  go  on  if  I  should  chance  to  meet  another  drunken 
cow-boy  with  a  better  aim  ?  It  will." 

The  door  closed  softly  behind  the  retreating  figure 
of  the  attorney-general,  and  Kent  released  the  spring 
of  the  night-latch.  Then  he  went  to  the  dropped  por- 
tiere at  the  farther  end  of  the  room,  drew  it  aside  and 
looked  in  on  a  man  who  was  writing  at  a  table  pushed 
out  between  the  windows. 

('<You  heard  him,  Loring?"  he  asked. 

The  ex-manager  nodded. 


264  THE    GEAFTEES 

"They  are  hard  pressed,"  he  said.  Then,  looking  up 
quickly:  "You  could  name  your  price  if  you  wanted 
to  close  out  the  stock  of  goods  in  hand,  David." 

"I  shall  name  it  when  the  time  comes.  Are  you 
ready  to  go  over  to  the  Argus  office  with  me?  I  want 
to  have  a  three-cornered  talk  with  Hildreth." 

"In  a  minute.  I'll  join  you  in  the  lobby  if  you 
don't  want  to  wait." 

It  was  in  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day  that  Kent 
found  a  note  in  his  key-box  at  the  Clarendon  asking 
him  to  call  up  124  Tejon  Avenue  by  telephone.  He  did 
it  at  once,  and  Penelope  answered.  The  key-box  note 
had  been  placed  at  Elinor's  request,  and  she,  Miss  Pe- 
nelope, could  not  say  what  was  wanted;  neither  could 
she  say  definitely  when  her  sister  would  be  in.  Eli- 
nor had  gone  out  an  hour  earlier  with  Mr.  Ormsby 
and  Miss  Van  Brock  in  Mr.  Ormsby's  motor-car.  When 
was  he,  David  Kent,  coming  up?  Did  he  know  they 
were  talking  of  spending  the  remainder  of  the  sum- 
mer at  Breezeland  Inn?  And  where  was  Mr.  Loring 
all  this  time? 

Kent  made  fitting  answers  to  all  these  queries,  hung 
up  the  ear-piece  and  went  away  moodily  reflective.  He 
was  due  at  a  meeting  of  the  executive  committee  of  the 
Civic  League,  but  he  let  the  public  business  wait  while 


THE   WINNING   LOSER  265 

he  speculated  upon  the  probable  object  of  Elinor's  tele- 
phoning him. 

Now  there  is  no  field  in  which  the  inconsistency  of 
human  nature  is  so  persistent  as  in  that  which  is  bound- 
ed by  the  sentimentally  narrowed  horizon  of  a  man  in 
love.  With  Ormsby  at  the  nodus  of  his  point  of  view, 
David  Kent  made  no  secret  of  his  open  rivalry  of  the 
millionaire,  declaring  his  intention  boldly  and  taking 
no  shame  therefor.  But  when  he  faced  about  toward 
Elinor  he  found  himself  growing  hotly  jealous  for  her 
good  faith;  careful  and  fearful  lest  she  should  say  or 
do  something  not  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  letter 
and  spirit  of  her  obligations  as  Ormsby's  fiancee. 

For  example:  at  the  "conspiracy  dinner/'  as  Loring 
dubbed  it,  Ormsby  being  present  to  fight  for  his  own 
hand,  Kent,  as  we  have  seen,  had  boldly  monopolized 
Miss  Brentwood,  and  would  have  committed  himself 
still  more  pointedly  had  the  occasion  favored  him.  None 
the  less,  when  Elinor  had  begged  him  privately  to  see 
her  before  moving  in  the  attack  on  the  junto,  he  had  al- 
most resented  the  implied  establishing  of  confidential 
relations  with  her  lover's  open  rival. 

For  this  cause  he  had  been  postponing  the  promised 
visit,  and  thereby  postponing  the  taking  of  the  final 
step  in  the  campaign  of  intimidation.  The  unexplained 
telephone  call  decided  him,  however.  He  would  go  and 
see  Elinor  and  have  the  ordeal  over  with. 


266  THE   GRAFTEES 

But  as  a  preliminary  lie  dined  that  evening  with 
Ormsby  at  the  Camelot  Club,  and  over  the  coffee  had 
it  out  with  him. 

"I  am  going  out  to  see  Miss  Brentwood  to-night,"  he 
announced  abruptly.  "Have  you  any  objection?" 

The  millionaire  gave  him  the  shrewdest  of  over- 
looks, ending  with  a  deep-rumbling  laugh. 

"Kent,  you  are  the  queerest  lot  I  have  ever  discovered, 
and  that  is  saying  a  good  bit.  Why,  in  the  name  of  all 
the  proprieties,  should  I  object?" 

"Your  right  is  unchallenged,"  Kent  admitted. 

"Is  it  ?  Better  ask  Miss  Brentwood  about  that.  She 
might  say  it  isn't." 

"I  don't  understand,"  said  Kent,  dry-tongued. 

"Don't  you?  Perhaps  I'd  better  explain:  she  might 
find  it  a  little  difficult.  You  have  been  laboring  under 
the  impression  that  we  are  engaged,  haven't  you?" 

"Laboring  under  the — why,  good  heavens,  man!  it's 
in  everybody's  mouth!" 

"Curious,  isn't  it,  how  such  things  get  about,"  com- 
mented the  player  of  long  suits.  "How  do  you  sup- 
pose they  get  started  ?" 

"I  don't  suppose  anything  about  it,  so  far  as  we  two 
are  concerned;  I  have  your  own  word  for  it.  You 
said  you  were  the  man  in  possession." 

Ormsby  laughed  again. 


THE   WINNING  LOSER  267 

"You  are  something  of  a  bluffer  yourself,  David. 
Did  you  let  my  little  stagger  scare  you  out?" 

David  Kent  pushed  his  chair  back  from  the  table  and 
nailed  Ormsby  with  a  look  that  would  have  made  a 
younger  man  betray  himself. 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  there  is  no  engage- 
ment between  you  and  Miss  Brentwood?" 

"Just  that."  Ormsby  put  all  the  nonchalance  he 
could  muster  into  the  laconic  reply,  but  he  was  antici- 
pating the  sequent  demand  which  came  like  a  shot  out 
of  a  gun. 

"And  there  never  has  been?" 

Ormsby  grinned. 

"When  you  are  digging  a  well  and  have  found  your 
stream  of  water,  it's  folly  'to  go  deeper,  David.  Can't 
you  let  'good  enough'  alone?" 

Kent  turned  it  over  in  his  mind,  frowning  thought- 
fully into  his  coffee-cup.  When  he  spoke  it  was  out 
of  the  mid-heart  of  manliness. 

"I  wish  you  would  tell  me  one  thing,  Ormsby.  Am 
I  responsible  for — for  the  present  state  of  affairs  ?" 

Ormsby  stretched  the  truth  a  little;  partly  for  Eli- 
nor's sake;  more,  perhaps,  for  Kent's. 

"You  have  done  nothing  that  an  honorable  rival— 
and  incidentally  a  good  friend  of  mine — might  not  do. 
Therefore  you  are  not  responsible." 


268  THE   GEAFTEES 

"That  is  putting  it  very  diplomatically,"  Kent 
mused.  "I  am  afraid  it  does  not  exonerate  me  wholly." 

"Yes,  it  does.  But  it  doesn't  put  me  out  of  the  run- 
ning, you  understand.  I'm  'forninst'  you  yet;  rather 
more  stubbornly  than  before,  I  fancy." 

Kent  nodded. 

"That,  of  course;  I  should  think  less  of  you  if  you 
were  not.  And  you  shall  have  as  fair  a  show  as  you 
are  giving  me — which  is  saying  a  lot.  Shall  we  go  and 
smoke?" 


XXI 

A  WOMAN  INTERVENES 

It  was  still  early  in  the  evening  when  Kent  mounted 
the  steps  of  the  Brentwood  apartment  house.  Mother 
and  daughters  were  all  on  the  porch,  but  it  was  Mrs. 
Brentwood  who  welcomed  him. 

"We  were  just  wondering  if  you  would  imagine  the 
message  which  Elinor  was  going  to  send,  and  didn't, 
and  come  out  to  see  what  was  wanted,"  she  said.  "I 
am  in  need  of  a  little  legal  advice.  Will  you  give  me 
a  few  minutes  in  the  library?" 

Kent  went  with  her  obediently,  but  not  without 
wondering  why  she  had  sent  for  him,  of  all  the  retain- 
able  lawyers  in  the  capital.  And  the  wonder  became 
amazement  when  she  opened  her  confidence.  She  had 
received  two  letters  from  a  New  York  broker  who 
offered  to  buy  her  railroad  stock  at  a  little  more  than 
the  market  price.  To  the  second  letter  she  had  replied, 
asking  a  price  ten  points  higher  than  the  market.  At 
this  the  broker  had  apparently  dropped  the  attempted 
negotiation,  since  there  had  been  no  more  letters.  What 
would  Mr.  Kent  advise  her  to  do— write  again? 
(269) 


270  THE   GRAFTERS 

Kent  smiled  inwardly  at  the  good  lady's  definition  of 
"legal  advice,"  but  he  rose  promptly  to  the  occasion.  If 
he  were  in  Mrs.  Brentwood's  place,  he  would  not  write 
again ;  nor  would  he  pay  any  attention  whatever  to  any 
similar  proposals  from  any  source.  Had  there  been  any 
others  ? 

Mrs.  Brentwood  confessed  that  there  had  been;  that 
a  firm  of  Boston  brokers  had  also  written  her.  Did  Mr. 
Kent  know  the  meaning  of  all  this  anxiety  to  buy  in 
Western  Pacific  when  the  stock  was  going  down  day  by 
day? 

Kent  took  time  for  reflection  before  he  answered.  It 
was  exceedingly  difficult  to  eliminate  the  personal  factor 
in  the  equation.  If  all  went  well,  if  by  due  process  of 
law  the  Trans-Western  should  be  rescued  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  wreckers,  the  property  would  be  a  long 
time  recovering  from  the  wounds  inflicted  by  the  cut 
rates  and  the  Guilford  bad  management.  In  conse- 
quence, any  advance  in  the  market  value  of  the  stock 
must  be  slow  and  uncertain  under  the  skilfullest  hand- 
ling. But,  while  it  might  be  advisable  for  Mrs.  Brent- 
wood  to  take  what  she  could  get,  the  transfer  of  the 
three  thousand  shares  at  the  critical  moment  might  be 
the  death  blow  to  all  his  hopes  in  the  fight  for  retrieval. 

Happily,  he  hit  upon  the  expedient  of  shifting  the  re- 
sponsibility for  the  decision  to  other  shoulders. 

"I  scarcely  feel  competent  to  advise  you  in  a  matter 


A   WOMAN   INTEEVENES  271 

which  is  personal  rather  than  legal,"  he  said  at  length. 
"Have  you  talked  it  over  with  Mr.  Ormsby?" 

Mrs.  Brentwood's  reply  was  openly  contemptuous. 

"Brookes  Ormsby  doesn't  know  anything  about  dol- 
lars. You  have  to  express  it  in  millions  before  he  can 
grasp  it.  He  says  for  me  not  to  sell  at  any  price." 

Kent  shook  his  head. 

"I  shouldn't  put  it  quite  so  strongly.  At  the  same 
time,  I  am  not  the  person  to  advise  you." 

The  shrewd  eyes  looked  up  at  him  quickly. 

"Would  you  mind  telling  me  why,  Mr.  Kent  ?" 

"Not  in  the  least.  I  am  an  interested  party.  For 
weeks  Mr.  Loring  and  I  have  been  striving  -foy  all  means 
to  prevent  transfers  of  the  stock  from  the  hands  of  the 
original  holders.  I  don't  want  to  advise  you  to  your 
hurt;  but  to  tell  you  to  sell  might  be  to  undo  all  that 
has  been  done." 

"Then  you  are  still  hoping  to  get  the  railroad  out  of 
Major  Guilford's  hands?" 

"Yes." 

"And  in  that  case  the  price  of  the  stock  will  go  up 
again?" 

"That  is  just  the  difficulty.  It  may  be  a  long  time 
recovering." 

"Do  you  think  the  sale  of  my  three  thousand  shares 
would  make  any  difference?"  she  asked. 


THE    GRAFTERS 


"There  is  reason  to  fear  that  it  would  make  all  the 
difference." 

She  was  silent  for  a  time,  and  when  she  spoke  again 
Kent  realized  that  he  was  coming  to  know  an  entirely 
unsuspected  side  of  Elinor's  mother. 

"It  makes  it  pretty  hard  for  me,"  she  said  slowly. 
"This  little  drib  of  railroad  stock  is  all  that  my  girls 
have  left  out  of  what  their  father  willed  them.  I  want 
to  save  it  if  I  can." 

"So  do  I,"  said  David  Kent,  frankly;  "and  for  the 
same  reason." 

Mrs.  Brentwood  confined  herself  to  a  dry  "Why  ?" 

"Because  I  have  loved  your  elder  daughter  well  and 
truly  ever  since  that  summer  at  the  foot  of  Old  Croy- 
don,  Mrs.  Brentwood,  and  her  happiness  and  well-being 
concern  me  very  nearly." 

"You  are  pretty  plain-spoken,  Mr.  Kent.  I  suppose 
you  know  Elinor  is  to  be  married  to  Brookes  Ormsby  ?" 
Mrs.  Brentwood  was  quite  herself  again. 

Kent  dexterously  equivocated. 

"I  know  they  have  been  engaged  for  some  time,"  he 
said  ;  but  the  small  quibble  availed  him  nothing. 

"Which  one  of  them  was  it  told  you  it  was  broken 
off  ?"  she  inquired. 

He  smiled  in  spite  of  the  increasing  gravity  of  the 
situation. 

"You  may  be  sure  it  was  not  Miss  Elinor." 


A   WOMAN   INTERVENES  273 

"Humph!"  said  Mrs.  Brentwood.  "She  didn't  tell 
me,  either.  'Twas  Brookes  Ormsby,  and  he  said  he 
wanted  to  begin  all  over  again,  or  something  of  that 
sort.  He  is  nothing  but  a  foolish  boy,  for  all  his  hair 
is  getting  thin/' 

"He  is  a  very  honorable  man,"  said  Kent. 

"Because  he  is  giving  you  another  chance?  I  don't 
mind  telling  you  plainly  that  it  won't  do  any  good,  Mr. 
Kent." 

"Why?"  he  asked  in  his  turn. 

"For  several  reasons:  one  is  that  Elinor  will  never 
marry  without  my  consent;  another  is  that  she  can't 
afford  to  marry  a  poor  man." 

Kent  rose. 

"I  am  glad  to  know  how  you  feel  about  it,  Mrs. 
Brentwood:  nevertheless,  I  shall  ask  you  to  give  your 
consent  some  day,  God  willing." 

He  expected  an  outburst  of  some  sort,  and  was  telling 
himself  that  he  had  fairly  provoked  it,  when  she  cut  the 
ground  from  beneath  his  tfeet. 

"Don't  you  go  off  with  any  such  foolish  notion  as  that, 
David  Kent,"  she  said,  not  unsympathetically.  "She's 
in  love  with  Brookes  Ormsby,  and  she  knows  it  now, 
if  she  didn't  before."  And  it  was  with  this  arrow  rank- 
ling in  him  that  Kent  bowed  himself  out  and  went  to 
join  the  young  women  on  the  porch. 


XXII 

A  BORBOWED  CONSCIENCE 

The  conversation  on  the  Brentwood  porch  was  chiefly 
of  Breezeland  Inn  as  a  health  and  pleasure  resort,  until 
an  outbound  electric  car  stopped  at  the  corner  below 
and  Loring  came  up  to  make  a  quartet  of  the  trio  be- 
hind the  vine-covered  trellis. 

Later,  the  ex-manager  confessed  to  a  desire  for  music 
— Penelope's  music — and  the  twain  went  in  to  the  sit- 
ting-room and  the  piano,  leaving  Elinor  and  Kent  to 
make  the  best  of  each  other  as  the  spirit  moved  them. 

It  was  Elinor's  chance  for  free  speech  with  Kent — the 
opportunity  she  had  craved.  But  now  it  was  come,  the 
simplicity  of  the  thing  to  be  said  had  departed  and  an 
embarrassing  complexity  had  taken  its  place.  Under 
other  conditions  Kent  would  have  been  quick  to  see  her 
difficulty,  and  would  have  made  haste  to  efface  it;  but 
he  was  fresh  from  the  interview  with  Mrs.  Brentwood, 
and  the  Parthian  arrow  was  still  rankling.  None  the 
less,  he  was  the  first  to  break  away  from  the  common- 
places. 

(274) 


A   BORROWED   CONSCIENCE  275 

"What  is  the  matter  with  us  this  evening?"  he  queried. 
"We  have  been  sitting  here  talking  the  vaguest  trivial- 
ities ever  since  Penelope  and  Loring  side-tracked  us.  I 
haven't  been  doing  anything  I  am  ashamed  of;  have 
you?" 

"Yes,"  she  confessed,  looking  away  from  him. 

"What  is  it?" 

"I  asked  a  certain  good  friend  of  mine  to  come  to 
see  me  when  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  he  didn't 
want  to  come." 

"What  makes  you  think  he  didn't  want  to  come  ?" 

"Why — I  don't  know ;  did  he  ?"  She  had  turned  upon 
him  swiftly  with  an  outflash  of  the  playful  daring  which 
had  been  one  of  his  major  fetterings  in  time  past — the 
ecstatic  little  charm  that  goes  with  quick  repartee  and 
instant  and  sympathetic  apprehension. 

"You  have  never  yet  asked  anything  of  him  that  he 
wasn't  glad  enough  to  give,"  he  rejoined,  keeping  up 
the  third  person  figurative. 

"Is  that  saying  very  much — or  very  little  ?" 

"Very  little,  indeed.  But  it  is  only  your  askings  that 
have  been  lacking — not  his  good  will." 

"That  was  said  like  the  David  Kent  I  used  to  know. 
Are  you  really  quite  the  same  ?" 

"I  hope  not,"  he  protested  gravely.  "People  used  to 
say  of  me  that  I  matured  late,  and  year  by  year  as  I  look 
back  I  can  see  that  it  was  a  true  saying.  I  have  done 


276  THE    GRAFTERS 

some  desperately  boyish  things  since  I  was  a  man  grown ; 
things  that  make  me  tingle  when  I  recall  them." 

"Like  wasting  a  whole  summer  exploring  Mount 
Croydon  with  a — a  somebody  who  did  not  mature  late  ?" 

"No;  I  wasn't  counting  that  among  my  lapses.  An 
older  man  than  I  ever  hope  to  be  might  find  excuses  for 
the  Croydon  summer.  I  meant  in  other  ways.  For  one 
thing,  I  have  craved  success  as  I  think  few  men  have 
ever  craved  it;  and  yet  my  plowings  in  that  field  have 
been  ill-timed  and  boyish  to  a  degree." 

She  shook  her  head. 

"I  don't  know  how  you  measure  success ;  it  is  a  word 
of  so  many,  many  meanings.  But  I  think  you  are  your 
own  severest  critic." 

"That  may  be ;  but  the  fact  remains.  It  is  only  with- 
in the  past  few  months  that  I  have  begun  to  get  a  true 
inkling  of  things ;  to  know,  for  example,  that  opportuni- 
ties are  things  to  be  compelled — not  waited  for." 

She  was  looking  away  from  him  again. 

"I  am  not  sure  that  I  like  you  better  for  your  having 
discovered  yourself.  I  liked  the  other  David  Kent." 

He  smiled  rather  joylessly. 

"Somebody  has  said  that  for  every  new  point  of  view 
gained  we  have  to  sacrifice  all  the  treasures  of  the  old. 
I  am  sorry  if  I  am  disappointing  you." 

"I  don't  know  that  you  are.  And  yet,  when  you  were 
sitting  at  Miss  Van  Brock's  table  the  other  evening  tell- 


A   BOEEOWED    CONSCIENCE  277 

ing  us  about  your  experience  with  the  politicians,  I  kept 
saying  to  myself  that  I  didn't  know  you — that  I  had 
never  known  you." 

"I  wish  I  knew  just  how  to  take  that,"  he  said  du- 
biously. 

"I  wish  I  knew  how  to  make  you  understand,"  she  re- 
turned ;  and  then :  "I  could  have  made  the  other  David 
Kent  understand." 

"You  are  in  duty  bound  to  try  to  make  this  one  un- 
derstand, don't  you  think?  You  spoke  of  a  danger 
which  was  not  the  violent  kind,  such  as  Loring  fears. 
What  is  it?" 

"You  have  had  two  whole  days,"  she  rejoined. 
"Haven't  you  discovered  it  ?" 

"I  haven't  found  anything  to  fear  but  failure,"  was 
his  reply. 

"That  is  it;  you  have  given  it  a  name — its  only  true 
name — failure." 

"But  I  am  not  going  to  fail." 

<fYou  mean  you  are  going  to  take  our  railroad  away 
from  these  men  who  have  stolen  it  ?" 

"That  is  what  I  mean." 

"And  you  will  do  it  by  threatening  to  expose  them  ?" 

"I  shall  tell  Governor  Bucks  what  I  know  about  the 
oil  field  deal,  assuring  him  that  I  shall  publish  the  facts 
if  he  doesn't  let  the  law  take  its  course  in  ousting  Judge 
MacFarlane  and  the  receiver." 


278  THE    GKAFTEKS 

She  rose  and  stood  before  him,  leaning  against  one  of 
the  vine-clad  porch  pillars  with  her  hands  behind  her. 

"David  Kent,  are  there  any  circumstances  in  which 
you  would  accept  a  bribe  ?" 

He  answered  her  in  all  seriousness. 

"They  say  every  man  has  his  price:  mine  is  higher 
than  any  bid  they  have  yet  made — or  can  make,  I  hope." 

"Why  don't  you  let  them  bribe  you?"  she  asked  coolly. 
"Is  it  because  it  is  inexpedient — because  there  is  more 
'success*  the  other  way  ?" 

He  tried  to  emulate  her  coolness  and  made  a  failure 
of  it. 

"Have  I  ever  done  anything  to  make  you  think  I  had 
thrown  common  honesty  and  self-respect  overboard  ?"  he 
demanded. 

Her  answer  was  another  question,  sharp-edged  and 
well  thrust  home. 

"Is  it  any  worse  to  take  a  bribe  than  it  is  to  give 
one  ?  You  have  just  admitted  that  you  are  going  to  buy 
the  governor's  neutrality,  you  know." 

"I  don't  see  it  in  that  light  at  all." 

"The  other  David  Kent  would  have  seen  it.  He  would 
have  said:  These  men  are  public  criminals.  If  I  can 
not  bring  them  to  justice,  I  can  at  least  expose  them  to 
the  scorn  of  all  good  men.  Therefore  I  have  no  right 
to  bargain  with  them." 


A  BORROWED   CONSCIENCE  279 

Kent  was  silent  for  a  long  time.  When  he  spoke  it  was 
to  say: 

"Why  have  you  done  this,  Elinor  ?" 

"Because  I  had  to,  David.    Could  I  do  less?" 

"I  suppose  not.  It's  in  the  blood — in  your  blood  and 
mine.  Other  folk  call  it  the  Puritan  virus  of  over- 
righteousness,  and  scoff  at  it.  I  don't  know :  sometimes 
I  think  they  have  the  best  of  the  argument." 

"I  can't  believe  you  are  quite  sincere  when  you  say 
that,"  she  asserted. 

"Yes,  I  am.  One  can  not  compromise  with  con- 
science; that  says  itself.  But  I  have  come  to  believe 
latterly  that  one's  conscience  may  be  morbidly  acute,  or 
even  diseased.  I'll  admit  I've  been  taking  treatment." 

"That  sounds  very  dreadful,"  she  rejoined. 

"It  does,  doesn't  it  ?  Yet  it  had  to  be  done.  As  I  in- 
timated a  few  minutes  ago,  my  life  has  hitherto  been  a 
sort  of  unostentatious  failure.  I  used  to  think  it  was 
because  I  was  outclassed :  I  know  now  it  has  been  be- 
cause I  wouldn't  do  as  other  men  do.  It  has  been  a 
rather  heart-breaking  process — to  sort  out  the  scruples, 
admitting  the  just  and  overriding  the  others — but  I 
have  been  given  to  see  that  it  is  the  price  of  success." 

"I  want  you  to  succeed,"  she  said. 

"Pardon  me;  I  don't  think  you  do.  You  have  re- 
opened the  door  to  doubt,  and  if  I  admit  the  doubt  I 
shall  fail." 


280  THE    GRAFTERS 

The  sonata  Penelope  was  playing  was  approaching  its 
finale,  and  Elinor  was  suddenly  shaken  with  a  trembling 
fit  of  fear — the  fear  of  consequences  which  might  involve 
this  man's  entire  future.  She  knew  Kent  was  leaning 
on  her,  and  she  saw  herself  as  one  who  has  ruthlessly 
thrust  an  iron  bar  among  the  wheels  of  a  delicate 
mechanism.  Who  was  she  to  be  his  conscience-keeper — • 
to  stand  in  the  way  and  bid  him  go  back  ?  Were  her  own 
motives  always  so  exalted?  Had  she  not  once  deliber- 
ately debated  this  same  question  of  expediency,  to  the 
utter  abasement  of  her  own  ideals? 

Penelope  had  left  the  piano,  and  Loring  was  looking 
at  his  watch.  Kent  saw  them  through  the  open  window 
and  got  upon  his  feet. 

"Grantham  is  saying  he  had  no  idea  it  was  so  late," 
he  hazarded.  "If  I  thank  you  for  what  you  have  said 
I  am  afraid  it  must  be  as  the  patient  thanks  the  surgeon 
for  the  knife-stroke  which  leaves  him  a  cripple  for  life." 

It  was  the  one  word  needed  to  break  her  resolution. 

"Oh,  forget  it ;  please  forget  it !"  she  said.  "I  had  no 
right  .  .  You  are  doing  a  man's  work  in  the  world, 
and  it  must  be  done  in  a  man's  way.  If  I  can  not  help, 
you  must  not  let  me  hinder.  If  you  let  anything  I  have 
said  discourage  you,  I  shall  never  cease  regretting  it." 

His  smile  was  a  mere  indrawing  of  the  lips. 

"Having  opened  the  door,  you  would  try  to  shut  it 
again,  would  you?  How  like  a  woman!  But  I  am 


A  BORROWED   CONSCIENCE          281 

afraid  it  can't  be  done.  I  had  been  trying  to  keep  away 
from  that  point  of  view.  .  .  There  is  much  to  be 
said  on  both  sides.  There  was  a  time  when  I  wouldn't 
have  gone  into  such  a  thing  as  this  fight  with  the  junto ; 
but  being  in,  I  should  have  seen  it  through  regardless  of 
the  public  welfare — ignoring  that  side  of  it.  I  can't 
do  it  now ;  you  have  shown  me  that  I  can't." 

"But  I  don't  want  to  be  a  stumbling-block,"  she  in- 
sisted. "Won't  you  believe  that  I  wanted  to  help  ?" 

"I  believe  that  your  motive  was  all  it  should  be;  yes. 
But  the  result  is  the  same." 

Loring  and  Penelope  were  coming  out,  and  the  end 
of  their  privacy  was  at  hand. 

"What  will  you  do  ?"  she  asked. 

"I  don't  know :  nothing  that  I  had  meant  to  do.  It 
was  a  false  start  and  I  am  back  under  the  wire  again." 

"But  you  must  not  turn  back  unless  you  are  fully 
convinced  of  the  wrong  of  going  on,"  she  protested. 

"Didn't  you  mean  to  convince  me  ?" 

"No — yes — I  don't  know.  I— it  seems  very  clear  to 
me;  but  I  want  it  to  seem  clear  to  you.  Doesn't  your 
conscience  tell  you  that  you  ought  to  turn  back  ?" 

"No,"  he  said  shortly;  but  he  immediately  qualified 
the  denial.  "You  may  be  right:  I  am  afraid  you  are 
right.  But  I  shall  have  to  fight  it  out  for  myself.  There 
are  many  things  to  consider.  If  I  hold  my  hand,  these 
bucaneers  will  triumph  over  the  stockholders,  and  a 


282  THE   GRAFTERS 

host  of  Innocent  people  will  suffer  loss."    Then,  seeing 
the  quick-springing  tears  in  her  eyes :  "But  you  mustn't 
be  sorry  for  having  done  what  you  had  to  do ;  you  have 
nothing  to  reproach  yourself  for" 
"Oh,  but  I  have  I"  she  said ;  and  so  they  parted. 


XXIII 

THE  INSUBRECTIOKiBIES 

When  the  Receiver  Guilfords,  great  and  small,  set 
their  official  guillotines  at  work  lopping  off  department 
heads,  they  commonly  ignore  a  consequence  overlooked 
by  many;  namely,  the  possible  effect  of  such  wholesale 
changes  in  leadership  upon  the  rank  and  file. 

The  American  railroad  in  its  unconsolidated  stage  is 
a  modern  feudalism.  Its  suzerains  are  the  president 
and  board  of  directors ;  its  clan  chiefs  are  the  men  who 
have  built  it  and  fought  for  its  footing  in  the  sharply 
contested  field  of  competition.  To  these  leaders  the 
rank  and  file  is  loyal,  as  loyalty  is  accorded  to  the  men 
who  build  and  do,  rather  than  to  their  successors  who 
inherit  and  tear  down.  Add  to  this  the  supplanting  of 
competent  executive  officers  by  a  staff  of  political  trench- 
ermen, ignorant  alike  of  the  science  of  railroading,  and 
the  equally  important  sub-science  of  industrial  man- 
handling, and  you  have  the  kindling  for  the  fire  of  in- 
surrection which  had  been  slowly  smoldering  in  the 
(283) 


284  THE   GEAFTEES 

Trans-Western  service  since  the  day  when  Major  Guil- 
ford  had  issued  his  general  order  Number  One. 

At  first  the  fire  had  burned  fitfully,  eating  its  way 
into  the  small  economies;  as  when  the  section  hands 
pelt  stray  dogs  with  new  spikes  from  the  stock  keg,  and 
careless  freight  crews  seed  down  the  right  of  way  with 
cast-off  links  and  pins;  when  engineers  pour  oil  where 
it  should  be  dropped,  and  firemen  feed  the  stack  instead 
of  the  steam-dome. 

But  later,  when  the  incompetence  of  the  new  officials 
became  the  mocking  gibe  of  the  service,  and  the  cut-rate 
avalanche  of  traffic  had  doubled  all  men's  tasks,  the 
flames  rose  higher,  and  out  of  the  smoke  of  them  loomed 
the  shape  of  the  dread  demon  of  demoralization. 

First  it  was  Hank  Brodrick,  who  misread  his  orders 
and  piled  two  freights  in  a  mountain  of  wreckage  in 
the  deep  cut  between  Long  Pine  and  Argenta.  Next  it 
was  an  overworked  night  man  who  lost  his  head  and 
cranked  a  switch  over  in  front  of  the  west-bound  Flyer, 
laying  the  1020  on  her  side  in  the  ditch,  with  the  postal 
and  the  baggage-car  neatly  telescoped  on  top  to  hold  her 
down. 

Two  days  later  it  was  Patsy  Callahan ;  and  though  he 
escaped  with  his  life  and  his  job,  it  was  a  close  call.  He 
was  chasing  a  time  freight  with  the  fast  mail,  and  the 
freight  was  taking  the  siding  at  Delhi  to  let  him  pass. 
One  of  the  red  tail-lights  of  the  freight  had  gone  out, 


THE   mSUKEECTIONAKIES  285 

and  Callahan  mistook  the  other  for  the  target  lamp  of 
the  second  switch.  He  had  time  to  yell  at  his  fireman, 
to  fling  himself  upon  the  throttle-bar  and  to  set  the  air- 
brake before  he  began  to  turn  Irish  handsprings  down 
the  embankment;  but  the  wrecking  crew  camped  two 
whole  days  at  Delhi  gathering  up  the  debris. 

It  was  well  on  in  the  summer,  when  the  two  divisions, 
east  and  west,  were  strewn  with  wreckage  and  the  pit 
tracks  in  the  shops  and  shop  yard  were  filled  to  over- 
flowing with  crippled  engines,  that  the  insurrectionaries 
began  to  gather  in  their  respective  labor  groups  to  dis- 
cuss the  growing  hazards  of  railroading  on  the  Trans- 
Western. 

The  outcome  was  a  protest  from  the  Brotherhood  of 
Locomotive  Engineers,  addressed  to  the  receiver  in  the 
name  of  the  organization,  setting  forth  in  plain  terms 
the  grievance  of  the  members,  and  charging  it  bluntly  to 
bad  management.  This  was  followed  immediately  by 
similar  complaints  from  the  trainmen,  the  telegraphers, 
and  the  firemen;  all  praying  for  relief  from  the  incubus 
of  incompetent  leadership.  Not  to  be  behind  these,  came 
the  Amalgamated  Machinists,  demanding  an  increase  of 
pay  for  night  work  and  overtime ;  and  last,  but  not  least, 
an  intimation  went  forth  from  the  Federative  Council 
of  all  these  labor  unions  hinting  at  possible  political 
consequences  and  the  alienation  of  the  labor  vote  if  the 
abuses  were  not  corrected. 


286  THE   GEAFTEES 

"What  d'ye  calc'late  the  major  will  do  about  it?" 
said  Brodrick,  in  the  roundhouse  conclave  held  daily 
by  the  trainmen  who  were  hung  up  or  off  duty.  "Will 
he  listen  to  reason  and  give  us  a  sure-enough  railroad 
man  or  two  at  the  top  ?" 

"Not  in  ein  thousand  year/'  quoth  "Dutch"  Tischer, 
Callahan's  alternate  on  the  fast  mail.  "Haf  you  not  de 
ArJcoos  been  reading?  It  is  bolotics  from  der  beginning 
to  der  ent ;  mit  der  governor  vorwarts" 

"Then  I  am  tellin'  you-all  right  now  there's  goin'  to 
be  a  heap  o'  trouble/'  drawled  "Pike  County"  Griggs, 
the  oldest  engineer  on  the  line.  "The  shopmen  are 
b'ilin';  and  if  the  major  puts  on  that  blanket  cut  in 
wages  he's  talkin'  about — " 

"If,"  broke  in  Callahan,  with  fine  scorn.  "'Tis 
slaping  on  yer  injuries  ye  are,  Misther  Griggs.  The 
notice  is  out ;  'twas  posted  in  the  shops  this  day." 

"Then  that  settles  it/'  said  Griggs,  gloomily.  "When 
does  it  take  hold?" 

"The  first  day  av  the  month  to  come.  An'  they're 
telling  me  it  catches  everybody,  down  to  the  missinger 
b'ys  in  the  of'ces." 

Griggs  got  upon  his  feet,  yawning  and  stretching  be- 
fore he  dropped  back  into  his  corner  of  the  wooden  set- 
tle. 

"You  lissen  at  me :  if  that's  the  fact,  I'm  tellin'  you- 
all  that  every  wheel  on  this  blame',  hoodooed  railroad 


THE   mSUKRECTIONAEIES  287 

is  goin'  to  stop  turnin'  at  twelve  o'clock  on  the  night 
before  that  notice  takes  hold." 

An  oil-begrimed  wiper  crawled  from  under  the  1031, 
spat  at  the  dope-bucket  and  flung  his  bunch  of  waste 
therein. 

"Gur-r-r!  Let  'em  stop,"  he  rasped.  "The  dope's 
bad,  and  the  waste's  bad;  and  the  old  man  has  cut  out 
the  'lectrics  and  put  us  back  on  them"  kicking  a  small 
jacket  lamp  to  the  bottom  of  an  empty  stall.  "Give  's 
a  chaw  o'  yer  smokin'  plug,  Mr.  Callahan,"  and  he  held 
out  his  hand. 

Callahan  emptied  the  hot  ashes  from  his  black  pipe 
into  the  open  palm. 

"'Tis  what  ye  get  f'r  yer  impidunce,  an'  f'r  layin' 
tongue  to  ould  man  Durgan,  ye  scut.  'Tis  none  av  his 
doin's — the  dhirty  oil  an'  the  chape  waste  an'  the  jacket 
lamps.  It's  ay-conomy,  me  son;  an'  the  other  name 
f'r  that  is  a  rayceiver." 

"Is  Durgan  with  us  ?"  asked  Brodrick. 

"He's  wit'  himself,  as  a  master-mechanic  shu'd  be," 
said  Callahan.  "So's  M'Tosh.  But  nayther  wan  n'r 
t'other  av  thim'll  take  a  thrain  out  whin  the  strike's  on. 
They're  both  Loring  min." 

At  the  mention  of  Loring's  name  Griggs  looked  up 
from  the  stick  he  was  whittling. 

"No  prospects  o'  the  Boston  folks  getting  the  road 
back  again,  I  reckon,"  he  remarked  tentatively. 


288  THE    GEAFTEKS 

"You  should  read  dose  Arkoos  newsbapers:  den  you 
should  know  somet'ings  alretty,  ain'd  it?"  said  Tischer. 

Brodrick  laughed. 

"If  you  see  it  in  the  papers,  it's  so/'  he  quoted. 
"What  the  Argus  doesn't  say  would  make  a  'nough 
sight  bigger  book  than  what  it  does.  But  I've  been 
kind  o'  watchin'  that  man  Kent.  He's  been  hot  after 
the  major,  right  from  the  jump.  You  rec'lect  what  he 
said  in  them  Civic  League  talks  o'  his :  said  these  poli- 
ticians had  stole  the  road,  hide,  hair  an'  horns." 

"I'm  onto  him,"  said  Callahan.  "  'Tis  a  bird  he  is. 
Oleson  was  telling  me.  The  Scandehoovian  was  thryin' 
to  get  him  down  to  Gaston  the  day  they  ray-ceivered  us. 
Jarl  says  he  wint  a  mile  a  minut',  an'  the  little  man 
never  turned  a  hair." 

"Is  he  here  yet ;  or  did  he  go  back  to  God's  country  ?" 
asked  Engineer  Scott,  leaning  from  the  cab  window  of 
the  1031. 

"He's  here;  and  so  is  Mr.  Loring.  They're  stopping 
at  the  Clarendon,"  said  Brodrick. 

"Then  they  haven't  quit,"  drawled  Griggs;  adding: 
"I  wonder  if  they  have  a  ghost  of  a  show  against  the 
politicals  ?" 

"Has  annybody  been  to  see  'em  ?"  asked  Callahan. 

"There's  a  notion  for  you,  Scott,"  said  Brodrick. 
Scott  was  the  presiding  officer  in  the  B.  of  L.  E.  local. 


THE   INSUKRECTIONARIES  289 

"Get  up  a  committee  from  the  Federative  to  go  and  ask 
Mr.  Loring  if  there's  any  use  in  our  tryin'  to  hold  on." 

The  wiper  was  killing  time  at  a  window  which  com- 
manded a  view  of  the  upper  yards,  with  the  Union  Pas- 
senger Station  at  the  end  of  the  three-mile  vista.  Be- 
ing a  late  comer  in  the  field,  the  Trans- Western  had 
scanty  track  rights  in  the  upper  yard;  its  local  head- 
quarters were  in  the  shops  suburb,  where  the  two  divi- 
sion main  lines  proper  began  and  ended,  diverging,  the 
one  to  the  eastward  and  the  other  to  the  west. 

"Holy  smut!"  said  the  wiper.  "See  Dicky  Dixon 
comin'  out  with  the  Flyer !  How's  that  for  ten  miles 
an  hour  in  the  city  limits  ?" 

It  was  a  foot-note  commentary  on  the  way  the  ser- 
vice was  going  to  pieces.  Halkett,  the  "political"  gen- 
eral superintendent,  had  called  Dixon  on  the  carpet 
for  not  making  time  with  his  train.  "If  you're  afraid 
to  run,  say  so,  and  we'll  get  a  man  that  isn't,"  Halkett 
had  said ;  and  here  was  Dixon  coming  down  a  borrowed 
track  in  a  busy  yard  at  the  speed  which  presupposes  a 
ninety-pound  rail  and  nothing  in  the  way. 

The  conclave  had  gathered  at  the  wiper's  window. 

"The  dum  fool!"  said  Brodrick.  "If  anything  gets 
in  front  of  him — " 

There  was  a  suburb  street-crossing  three  hundred 
yards  townward  from  the  "yard  limits"  telegraph  office, 


290  THE   GKAFTEES 

which  stood  in  the  angle  formed  by  the  diverging 
tracks  of  the  two  divisions.  Beyond  the  yard  the 
street  became  a  country  road,  well  traveled  as  the  prin- 
cipal southern  inlet  to  the  city.  When  Dixon  was  with- 
in two  train-lengths  of  the  crossing,  a  farm  wagon  ap- 
peared, driven  between  the  cut  freight  trains  on  the 
sidings  directly  in  the  path  of  the  Flyer.  The  men  at 
the  roundhouse  window  heard  the  crash  of  the  splinter- 
ing wagon  above  the  roar  of  the  train;  and  the  wiper 
on  the  window  seat  yelped  like  a  kicked  dog  and  went 
sickly  green  under  his  mask  of  grime. 

"There  it  is  again,"  said  Scott,  when  Dixon  had 
brought  his  train  to  a  stand  two  hundred  yards  beyond 
the  "limits"  office  where  he  should  have  stopped  for 
orders.  "We're  all  hoodooed,  the  last  one  of  us.  I'll 
get  that  committee  together  this  afternoon  and  go  and 
buzz  Mr.  Loring." 

Now  it  fell  out  that  these  things  happened  on  a  day 
when  the  tide  of  retrieval  was  at  its  lowest  ebb;  the 
day,  namely,  in  which  Kent  had  told  Loring  that  he 
was  undecided  as  to  his  moral  right  to  use  the  evidence 
against  Bucks  as  a  lever  to  pry  the  Trans- Western  out 
of  the  grip  of  the  junto.  It  befell,  also,  that  it  was  the 
day  chosen  by  two  other  men,  not  members  of  the  labor 
unions,  in  which  to  call  upon  the  ex-manager;  and 
Loring  found  M'Tosh,  the  train-master,  and  Durgan, 
the  master-mechanic,  waiting  for  him  in  the  hotel  cor- 


THE   HSTSUKRECTIONARIES  291 

ridor  when  he  came  in  from  a  late  luncheon  at  the 
Camelot  Club. 

"Can  you  give  us  a  few  minutes,  Mr.  Loring?"  asked 
M'Tosh,  when  Loring  had  shaken  hands  with  them,  not 
as  subordinates. 

"Surely.  My  time  is  not  very  valuable,  just  at  pres- 
ent. Come  in,  and  I'll  see  if  Mr.  Kent  has  left  me  any 
cigars." 

"Humph!"  said  Durgan,  when  the  ex-manager  had 
gone  into  Kent's  room  to  rummage  for  the  smoke  offer- 
ing. "And  they  give  us  the  major  in  the  place  of  such 
a  man  as  that!"  with  a  jerk  of  his  thumb  toward  the 
door  of  the  bedroom. 

"Come  off!"  warned  M'Tosh;  "he'll  hear  you."  And 
when  Loring  came  back  with  the  cigars  there  was  dry 
humor  in  his  eye. 

"You  mustn't  let  your  loyalty  to  the  old  guard  get 
you  into  trouble  with  the  receiver/'  he  cautioned;  and 
they  both  smiled. 

"The  trouble  hasn't  waited  for  our  bringing,"  said 
M'Tosh.  "That  is  why  we  are  here.  Durgan  has  soured 
on  his  job,  and  I'm  more  than  sick  of  mine.  It's  hell, 
Mr.  Loring.  I  have  been  at  it  twenty  years,  and  I  never 
saw  such  crazy  railroading  in  any  one  of  them." 

"Bad  management,  you  mean  ?" 

"Bad  management  at  the  top,  and  rotten  demoraliza- 
tion at  the  bottom  as  a  natural  consequence.  We  can't 


292  THE   GRAFTEKS 

be  sure  of  getting  a  train  out  of  the  yards  without 
accident.  Dixon  is  as  careful  a  man  as  ever  stepped  on 
an  engine,  and  he  smashed  a  farmer's  wagon  and  killed 
the  farmer  this  morning  within  two  train-lengths  of 
the  shop  junction." 

"Drunk?"  inquired  the  ex-manager. 

"Never  a  drop;  Dixon's  a  Prohibitionist,  dyed  in  the 
wool.  But  just  before  he  took  his  train,  Halkett  had 
him  in  the  sweat-box,  jacking  him  up  for  not  making 
his  time.  He  came  out  red  in  the  face,  jumped  on  his 
engine,  and  yanked  the  Flyer  down  the  yards  forty 
miles  an  hour." 

"And  what  is  your  .trouble,  Durgan?"  asked  Loring. 

"Another  side  of  the  same  thing.  I  wrote  Major  Guil- 
ford  yesterday,  telling  him  that  six  pit  gangs,  all  the 
roundhouse  'emergencies'  and  two  outdoor  repair  squads 
couldn't  begin  to  keep  the  cripples  moving;  and  within 
a  week  every  one  of  the  labor  unions  has  kicked  through 
its  grievance  committee.  His  reply  is  an  order  announc- 
ing a  blanket  cut  in  wages,  to  go  into  effect  the  first  of 
the  month.  That  means  a  strike  and  a  general  tie-up." 

Loring  shook  his  head  regretfully. 

"It  hurts  me,"  he  admitted.  "We  had  the  best-hand- 
led piece  of  railroad  in  the  West,  and  I  give  the  credit 
to  the  men  that  did  the  handling.  And  to  have  it 
wrecked  by  a  gang  of  incompetent  salary-grabbers — " 

The  two  left-overs  nodded. 


THE   INSUEEECTIONAEIES  293 

"That's  just  it,  Mr.  Loring,"  said  M'Tosh.  "And 
we're  here  to  ask  you  if  it's  worth  while  for  us  to  stick 
to  the  wreck  any  longer.  Are  you  folks  doing  any- 
thing?" 

"We  have  been  trying  all  legal  means  to  break  the 
grip  of  the  combination — yes." 

"And  what  are  the  prospects?"  It  was  the  master- 
mechanic  who  wanted  to  know. 

"They  are  not  very  bright  at  present,  I  must  confess. 
We  have  the  entire  political  ring  to  fight,  and  the  odds 
are  overwhelming." 

"You  say  you've  been  trying  legal  means',"  M'Tosh 
put  in.  "Can't  we  down  them  some  other  way?  I  be- 
lieve you  could  safely  count  on  the  help  of  every  man 
in  the  service,  barring  the  politicals." 

Loring  smiled. 

"I  don't  say  we  should  scruple  to  use  force  if  there 
were  any  way  to  apply  it.  But  the  way  doesn't  offer." 

"I  didn't  know,"  said  the  train-master,  rising  to  close 
the  interview.  "But  if  the  time  ever  comes,  all  you  or 
Mr.  Kent  will  have  to  do  will  be  to  pass  the  word. 
Maybe  you  can  think  of  some  way  to  use  the  strike. 
It  hasn't  been  declared  yet,  but  you  can  bet  on  it  to  a 
dead  moral  certainty." 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day  that 
the  Federative  Council  sent  its  committee,  chairmaned 
by  Engineer  Scott,  to  interview  the  ex-general  manager 


294  THE   GEAFTEES 

at  his  rooms  in  the  Clarendon.  Scott  acted  as  spokes- 
man, stating  the  case  with  admirable  brevity  and  con- 
ciseness, and  asking  the  same  question  as  that  pro- 
pounded by  the  train-master,  to  wit,  if  there  were  any 
prospect  of  a  return  of  the  road  to  its  former  manage- 
ment. 

Loring  spoke  more  hopefully  to  the  committee  than 
he  had  to  Durgan  and  M'Tosh.  There  had  been  a  little 
more  time  for  reflection,  and  there  was  the  heartening 
which  comes  upon  the  heels  of  unsolicited  help-tender- 
ings,  however  futile.  So  he  told  the  men  that  the  stock- 
holders were  moving  heaven  and  earth  in  the  effort  to 
recover  their  property;  that  until  the  road  should  be 
actually  sold  under  an  order  from  the  court,  there  was 
always  room  for  hope.  The  committee  might  rest  as- 
sured that  no  stone  would  be  left  unturned;  also  that 
the  good  will  of  the  rank  and  file  would  not  be  forgotten 
in  the  day  of  restitution,  if  that  day  should  ever  dawn. 
When  Loring  was  through,  Engineer  Scott  did  a  thing 
no  union  man  had  ever  done  before:  he  asked  an  ex- 
general  manager's  advice  touching  the  advisability  of  a 
strike. 

"I  can't  say  as  to  that,"  was  the  prompt  reply.  'TTou 
know  your  own  business  best — what  it  will  cost,  and 
what  it  may  accomplish.  But  I've  been  on  the  other 
side  often  enough  to  be  able  to  tell  you  why  most  strikes 
fail,  if  you  care  to  know." 


THE   INSUKKECTIONAKIES  295 

A  broad  grin  ran  the  gamut  of  the  committee. 

"Tell  us  what  to  do,  and  we'll  do  it,  Mr.  Loring," 
said  Scott,  briefly. 

"First,  then,  have  a  definite  object  and  one  that  will 
stand  the  test  of  public  opinion;  in  this  case  we'll  say 
it  is  the  maintenance  of  the  present  wage-scale  and  the 
removal  of  incompetent  officers  and  men.  Secondly, 
make  your  protest  absolutely  unanimous  to  a  man. 
Thirdly,  don't  give  the  major  time  to  fortify :  keep  your 
own  counsels,  and  don't  send  in  your  ultimatum  until 
the  final  moment.  And,  lastly,  shun  violence  as  you 
would  a  temptation  of  the  devil." 

"Yon's  a  man,"  said  Angus  Duncan,  the  'member 
from  the  Amalgamated  Machinists,  when  the  commit- 
tee was  filing  out  through  the  hotel  corridor. 

"Now  you're  shouting!"  said  Engineer  Scott.  "And 
you  might  say  a  man  and  a  brother." 


XXIV 

INTO  THE  PRIMITIVE 

Tested  upon  purely  diplomatic  principles,  Miss  Van 
Brock's  temper  was  little  less  than  angelic,  exhibiting 
itself  under  provocation  only  in  guarded  pin-pricks  of 
sarcasm,  or  in  small  sharp-clawed  kitten-buffetings  of 
repartee.  But  she  was  at  no  pains  to  conceal  her  scorn- 
ful disappointment  when  David  Kent  made  known  his 
doubts  concerning  his  moral  right  to  use  the  weapon 
he  had  so  skilfully  forged. 

He  delayed  the  inevitable  confession  to  Portia  until 
he  had  told  Loring;  and  in  making  it  he  did  not  tell 
Miss  Van  Brock  to  whom  he  owed  the  sudden  change 
in  the  point  of  view.  But  Portia  would  have  greatly 
discredited  her  gift  of  insight  if  she  had  not  instantly 
reduced  the  problem  to  its  lowest  terms. 

(fYou  have  been  asking  Miss  Brentwood  to  lend  you 
her  conscience,  and  she  has  done  it,"  was  the  form  in 
which  she  stated  the  fact.  And  when  Kent  did  not 
deny  it:  fCYou  lack  at  least  one  quality  of  greatness, 
David ;  you  sway  too  easily." 

(296) 


INTO    THE    PEIMITIVE  297 

"No,  I  don't !"  he  protested.  "I  am  as  obstinate  as  a 
mule.  Ask  Ormsby,  or  Loring.  But  the  logic  of  the 
thing  is  blankly  unanswerable.  I  can  either  get  down 
to  the  dirty  level  of  these  highbinders — fight  the  devil 
with  a  brand  taken  out  of  his  own  fire ;  or — " 

"Or  what?"  she  asked. 

"Or  think  up  some  other  scheme;  some  plan  which 
doesn't  involve  a  surrender  on  my  part  of  common  de- 
cency and  self-respect." 

"Yes?"  she  retorted.  "I  suppose  you  have  the  other 
»lan  all  wrought  out  and  ready  to  drop  into  place  ?" 

"No,  I  haven't,"  he  admitted  reluctantly. 

"But  at  least  you  have  some  notion  of  what  it  is  go- 
ing to  be?" 

"No." 

She  was  pacing  back  and  forth  in  front  of  his  chair 
in  a  way  that  was  almost  man-like;  but  her  con- 
temptuous impatience  made  her  dangerously  beautiful. 
Suddenly  she  stopped  and  turned  upon  him,  and  there 
were  sharp  claws  in  the  kitten-buffetings. 

"Do  you  know  you  are  spoiling  a  future  that  most 
men  would  hesitate  to  throw  away  ?"  she  asked.  "While 
you  have  been  a  man  of  one  idea  in  this  railroad  af- 
fair, we  haven't. been  idle — your  newspaper  and  polit- 
ical friends,  and  Ormsby  and  I.  You  are  ambitious; 
you  want  to  succeed;  and  we  have  been  laying  the 
foundations  for  you.  The  next  election  would  give  you 


298  THE    GEAFTEES 

anything  in  the  gift  of  the  State  that  a  man  of  your 
years  could  aspire  to.  Have  you  known  this  ?" 

"I  have  guessed  it,"  he  said  quite  humbly. 

"Of  course  you  have.  But  it  has  all  been  contingent 
upon  one  thing:  you  were  to  crush  the  grafters  in  this 
railroad  struggle — show  them  up — and  climb  to  dis- 
tinction yourself  on  the  ladder  from  which  you  had 
shaken  them.  It  might  have  been  done;  it  was  in  a 
fair  way  to  be  done.  And  now  you  turn  back  and  leave 
the  plow  in  the  furrow !" 

There  was  more  of  a  like  quality — a  good  bit  more; 
some  of  it  regretful ;  all  of  it  pungent  and  logical  from 
Miss  Van  Brock's  point  of  view;  and  Kent  was  no 
rock  not  to  be  moved  by  the  small  tempest  of  disap- 
pointed vicarious  ambition.  Wherefore  he  escaped 
when  he  could,  though  only  to  begin  the  ethical  battle 
all  over  again ;  to  fight  and  to  wander  among  the  tombs 
in  the  valley  of  indecision  for  a  week  and  a  day,  eight 
miserable  twirlings  of  the  earth  in  space,  during  which 
interval  he  was  invisible  to  his  friends  and  innocuous  to 
his  enemies. 

On  the  morning  of  the  ninth  day  Editor  Hildreth 
telephoned  Miss  Van  Brock  to  ask  if  she  knew  where 
Kent  could  be  found.  The  answer  was  a  rather  anxious 
negative;  though  the  query  could  have  been  answered 
affirmatively  by  the  conductor  and  motorman  of  an 
early  morning  electric  car  which  ran  to  the  farthest 


INTO    THE    PEIMITIVE  299 

outskirts  of  the  eastern  suburb  of  the  city.  Following,  a 
boyish  habit  he  had  never  fully  outgrown,  Kent  had  once 
more  taken  his  problem  to  the  open,  and  the  hour  after 
luncheon  time  found  him  plodding  wearily  back  to  the 
end  of  the  car  line,  jaded,  dusty  and  stiff  from  much 
tramping  of  the  brown  plain,  but  with  the  long  duel 
finally  fought  out  to  some  despairing  conclusion. 

The  City  Hall  clock  was  upon  the  stroke  of  three 
when  the  inbound  trolley-car  landed  him  in  front  of 
the  Clarendon.  It  was  a  measure  of  his  purposeful 
abstraction  that  he  went  on  around  the  corner  to  the 
Security  Bank,  dusty  and  unpresentable  as  he  was,  and 
transferred  the  packet  of  incriminating  affidavits  from 
the  safety  deposit  box  to  bis  pocket  before  going  to  his 
rooms  in  the  hotel. 

This  paper  weapon  was  the  centering  point  of  the 
struggle  which  had  now  lasted  for  nearly  a  fortnight. 
So  long  as  the  weapon  was  his  to  use  or  to  cast  away, 
the  outcome  of  the  moral  conflict  hung  in  the  balance. 
But  now  he  was  emerging  from  the  night  wanderings 
among  the  tombs  of  the  undecided. 

"I  can't  give  it  up;  there  is  too  much  at  stake,"  he 
muttered,  as  he  trudged  heavily  back  to  the  hotel.  And 
before  he  went  above  stairs  he  asked  the  young  woman 
at  the  house  telephone  exchange  to  ascertain  if  Gov- 
ernor Bucks  were  in  his  office  at  the  capitol,  and  if  so, 
if  he  were  likely  to  remain  there  for  an  hour. 


300  THE    GRAFTEES 

When  he  reached  his  rooms  he  flung  the  packet  of 
papers  on  the  writing-table  and  went  to  freshen  him- 
self with  a  bath.  That  which  lay  before  him  called  for 
fitness,  mental  and  physical,  and  cool  sanity.  In  other 
times  of  stress,  as  just  before  a  critical  hour  in  court, 
the  tub  and  the  cold  plunge  had  been  his  fillip  where 
other  men  resorted  to  the  bottle. 

He  was  struggling  into  clean  linen,  and  the  packet 
was  still  lying  where  he  had  tossed  it  on  entering, 
when  a  bell-boy  came  up  with  a  card.  Kent  read  the 
name  with  a  ghost  of  a  smile  relaxing  the  care-drawn 
lines  about  his  mouth.  There  are  times  when  a  man's 
fate  rushes  to  meet  him,  and  he  had  fallen  upon  one 
of  them. 

"Show  him  up/'  was  the  brief  direction;  and  when 
the  door  of  the  elevator  cage  clacked  again,  Kent  was 
waiting. 

His  visitor  was  a  man  of  heroic  proportions ;  a  large 
man  a  little  breathed,  as  it  seemed,  by  the  swift  upward 
rush  of  the  elevator.  Kent  admitted  him  with  a  nod; 
and  the  governor  planted  himself  heavily  in  a  chair 
and  begged  a  light  for  his  cigar.  In  the  match-passing 
he  gathered  his  spent  breath  and  declared  his  errand. 

"I  think  we  have  a  little  score  to  settle  between  us  as 
man  to  man,  Kent,"  he  began,  when  Kent  had  clipped 
the  end  from  his  own  cigar  and  lighted  it  in  stolid 
silence. 


INTO    THE    PEIMITIVE  301 

"Possibly :  that  is  for  you  to  say/'  was  the  unencour- 
aging  reply. 

Bucks  rose  deliberately,  walked  to  the  bath-room  door, 
and  looked  beyond  it  into  the  bedroom. 

"We  are  quite  alone,  if  that  is  what  you  want  to  make 
sure  of,"  said  Kent,  in  the  same  indifferent  tone;  and 
the  governor  came  back  and  resumed  his  chair. 

"I  came  up  to  see  what  you  want — what  you  will 
take  to  quit,"  he  announced,  crossing  his  legs  and  lock- 
ing the  huge  ham-like  hands  over  his  knee.  "That  is 
putting  it  rather  abruptly,  but  business  is  business,  and 
we  can  dispense  with  the  preliminaries,  I  take  it." 

"I  told  your  attorney-general  some  time  ago  what  I 
wanted,  and  he  did  not  see  fit  to  grant  it,"  Kent  re- 
sponded. "I  am  not  sure  that  I  want  anything  now — 
anything  you  can  have  to  offer."  This  was  not  at 
all  what  he  had  intended  to  say;  but  the  presence  of 
the  adversary  was  breeding  a  stubborn  antagonism  that 
was  more  potent  on  the  moral  side  than  all  the  prick- 
ings of  conscience. 

The  yellow-lidded  eyes  of  the  governor  began  to  close 
down,  and  the  look  came  into  them  which  had  been 
there  when  he  had  denied  a  pardon  to  a  widow  pleading 
for  the  life  of  her  convicted  son. 

"I  had  hoped  you  were  in  the  market,"  he  demurred. 
"It  would  be  better  for  all  concerned  if  you  had  some- 
thing to  sell,  with  a  price  attached.  I  know  what  you 


302  THE   GRAFTERS 

have  been  doing,  and  what  you  think  you  have  got  hold 
of.  It's  a  tissue  of  mistakes  and  falsehoods  and  back- 
bitings  from  beginning  to  end,  but  it  may  serve  your 
purpose  with  the  newspapers.  I  want  to  buy  that  pack- 
age of  stuff  you've  got  stowed  away  in  the  Security 
vaults." 

The  governor's  chair  was  on  one  side  of  the  wri,ting- 
table,  and  Kent's  was  on  the  other.  In  plain  sight  be- 
tween the  two  men  lay  the  packet  Bucks  was  willing 
to  bargain  for.  It  was  inclosed  in  a  box  envelope,  bear- 
ing the  imprint  of  the  Security  Bank.  Kent  was  look- 
ing steadily  away  from  the  table  when  he  said : 

"What  if  I  say  it  isn't  for  sale?" 

"Don't  you  think  it  had  better  be  ?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  hadn't  thought  much  about  the 
advisable  phase  of  it." 

r  "Well,  the  time  has  come  when  you've  got  it  to  do," 
was  the  low-toned  threat. 

"But  not  as  a  matter  of  compulsion,"  said  Kent, 
coolly  enough.  "What  is  your  bid  ?" 

Bucks  made  it  promptly. 

"Ten  thousand  dollars :  and  you  promise  to  leave  the 
State  and  stay  away  for  one  year  from  the  first  Tuesday 
in  November  next." 

"That  is,  until  after  the  next  State  election."  Kent 
blew  a  whiff  of  smoke  to  the  ceiling  and  shook  his  head 
slowly.  "It  is  not  enough." 


INTO   THE    PEIMITIVE  303 

The  governor  uncrossed  his  legs,  crossed  them  the 
other  way,  and  said : 

"I'll  make  it  twenty  thousand  and  two  years." 

"Or  thirty  thousand  and  three  years,"  Kent  sug- 
gested amiably.  "Or  suppose  we  come  at  once  to  the 
end  of  that  string  and  say  one  hundred  thousand  and 
ten  years.  That  would  still  leave  you  a  fair  price  for 
your  block  of  suburban  property  in  Guilford  and 
Hawk's  addition  to  the  city  of  Gaston,  wouldn't  it?" 

The  governor  set  his  massive  jaw  with  a  sharp  little 
click  of  the  teeth. 

"You  are  joking  on  the  edge  of  your  grave,  my  young 
friend.  I  taught  you  in  Gaston  that  you  were  not  big 
enough  to  fight  me:  do  you  think  you  are  big  enough 
now?" 

"I  don't  think ;  I  know,"  said  Kent,  incisively.  "And 
since  you  have  referred  to  the  Gaston  days :  let  me  ask 
if  I  ever  gave  you  any  reason  to  believe  that  I  could  be 
scared  out?" 

"Keep  to  the  point,"  retorted  Bucks,  harshly.  "This 
State  isn't  broad  enough  to  hold  you  and  me  on  op- 
posite sides  of  the  fence.  I  could  make  it  too  hot  to 
hold  you  without  mixing  up  in  it  myself,  but  I  choose 
to  fight  my  own  battles.  Will  you  take  twenty  thousand 
dollars  spot  cash,  and  MacFarlane's  job  as  circuit  judge 
when  I'm  through  with  him  ?  Yes  or  no." 

"No." 


304  THE   GKAFTEKS 

"Then  what  will  you  take?" 

"Without  committing  myself  in  any  sense,  I  might 
say  that  you  are  getting  off  too  cheaply  on  your  most 
liberal  proposition.  You  and  your  friends  have  looted 
a  seventy-million-dollar  railroad,  and — " 

"You  might  have  stood  in  on  that  if  you  had  taken 
Guilford's  offer,"  was  the  brusk  rejoinder.  "There  was 
more  than  a  corporation  lawyer's  salary  in  sight,  if 
you'd  had  sense  enough  to  see  it." 

"Possibly.    But  I  stayed  out — and  I  am  still  out." 

"Do  you  want  to  get  in  ?  Is  that  your  price  ?" 

"I  intend  to  get  in — though  not,  perhaps,  in  the  way 
you  have  in  mind.  Are  you  ready  to  recall  Judge  Mac- 
Farlane  with  instructions  to  give  us  our  hearing  on  the 
merits  ?" 

The  governor's  face  was  wooden  when  he  said : 

"Is  that  all  you  want?  I  understand  MacFarlane  is 
returning,  and  you  will  doubtless  have  your  hearing  in 
due  season." 

"Not  unless  you  authorize  it,"  Kent  objected. 

"And  if  I  do?  If  I  say  that  I  have  already  done  so, 
will  you  come  in  and  lay  down  your  arms  ?" 

"No." 

"Then  I'm  through.  Give  me  your  key  and  write 
me  an  order  on  the  Security  Bank  for  those  papers  you 
are  holding." 

"No,"  said  Kent,  again. 


HE   JAMMED    THE    KIKE    END    OK    HIS    CIGAR    AMONG   THE    FINGERS 
OF  THE   GRASPING    HAND 


INTO   THE    PEIMITIVE  305 

"I  say  yes!"  came  the  explosive  reassertion;  and 
Kent  found  himself  looking  down  the  bright  barrel  of 
a  pistol  thrust  into  his  face  across  the  table. 

For  a  man  who  had  been  oftenest  an  onlooker  on  the 
football  half  of  life,  Kent  was  measurably  quick  and  re- 
sourceful. In  one  motion  he  clamped  the  weapon  and 
turned  it  aside;  in  another  he  jammed  the  fire  end  of 
his  cigar  among  the  fingers  of  the  grasping  hand.  The 
governor  jerked  free  with  an  oath,  pain-extorted;  and 
Kent  dropped  the  captured  weapon  into  the  table 
drawer.  It  was  all  done  in  two  breaths,  and  when  it 
was  over,  Kent  flung  away  the  broken  cigar  and  lighted 
a  fresh  one. 

"That  was  a  very  primitive  expedient,  your  Excel- 
lency, to  say  the  best  of  it,"  he  remarked.  "Have  you 
nothing  better  to  offer?" 

The  reply  was  a  wild-beast  growl,  and  taking  it  for  a 
negative,  Kent  went  on. 

"Then  perhaps  you  will  listen  to  my  proposal.  The 
papers  you  are  so  anxious  about  are  here," — tapping  the 
envelope  on  the  table.  "No,  don't  try  to  snatch  them; 
you  wouldn't  get  out  of  here  alive  with  them,  lacking 
my  leave.  Such  of  them  as  relate  to  your  complicity  in 
the  Universal  Oil  deal  are  yours— on  one  condition; 
that  your  health  fails  and  you  get  yourself  ordered  out 
of  the  State  for  the  remainder  of  your  term." 

"No !"  thundered  the  governor. 


306  THE   GRAFTERS 

"Very  well;  you  may  stay  and  take  a  course  of  home 
treatment,  if  you  prefer.  It's  optional." 

"By  God !  I  don't  know  what  keeps  me  from  throt- 
tling you  with  my  hands!"  Bucks  got  upon  his  feet, 
and  Kent  rose,  also,  slipping  the  box  envelope  into  his 
pocket  and  laying  a  precautionary  hand  on  the  drawer- 
pull. 

The  governor  turned  away  and  walked  to  the  window, 
nursing  his  burned  fingers.  When  he  faced  about  it 
was  to  return  to  the  charge. 

"Kent,  what  is  it  you  want  ?    Say  it  in  two  words." 

"Candidly,  I  didn't  know,  until  a  few  minutes  ago, 
Governor.  It  began  with  a  determination  to  break  your 
grip  on  my  railroad,  I  believe." 

"You  can  have  your  railroad,  if  you  can  get  it — and 
be  damned  to  it,  and  to  you,  too !" 

"I  said  it  began  that  way.  My  sole  idea  in  gathering 
up  this  evidence  against  you  and  your  accomplices  was 
to  whittle  out  a  club  that  would  make  you  let  go  of  the 
Trans-Western.  For  two  weeks  I  have  been  debating 
with  myself  as  to  whether  I  should  buy  you  or  break 
you;  and  half  an  hour  before  you  came,  I  went  to  the 
bank  and  took  these  papers  out,  meaning  to  go  and  hunt 
you  up." 

"Well?"  said  the  governor,  and  the  word  bared  his 
teeth  because  his  lips  were  dry. 

"I  thought  I  knew,  in  the  old  Gaston  days,  how  many 


INTO   THE    PEIMITIVE  307 

different  kinds  of  a  scoundrel  you  could  be,  but  you've 
succeeded  in  showing  me  some  new  variations  in  the  last 
few  minutes.  It's  a  thousand  pities  that  the  people  of 
a  great  State  should  be  at  the  mercy  of  such  a  gang  of 
pirates  as  you  and  Hendricks  and  Meigs  and  MacFar- 
lane,  and — " 

"Break  it  off !"  said  Bucks. 

"I'm  through.  I  was  merely  going  to  add  that  I 
have  concluded  not  to  buy  you." 

"Then  ifs  to  be  war  to  the  knife,  is  it?" 

"That  is  about  the  size  of  it,"  said  Kent;  and  the 
governor  found  his  hat. 

"I'll  trouble  you  to  return  my  property,"  he  growled, 
pointing  to  the  table  drawer. 

"Certainly."  Kent  broke  the  revolver  over  the  blot- 
ting pad,  swept  the  ejected  cartridges  into  the  open 
drawer,  and  passed  the  empty  weapon  to  its  owner. 

When  the  door  closed  behind  the  outgoing  visitor  the 
victor  in  the  small  passage  at  arms  began  to  walk  the 
floor ;  but  at  four  o'clock,  which  was  Hildreth's  hour  for 
coming  down-town,  he  put  on  his  hat  and  went  to  climb 
the  three  flights  of  stairs  to  the  editor's  den  in  the 
Argus  building. 


XXV 

DEAD  WATER  AND  QUICK 

The  cubby-hole  in  which  Hildreth  earned  his  bread 
by  the  sweat  of  his  brain  was  dark  even  at  midday ;  and 
during  working  hours  the  editor  sat  under  a  funnel- 
shaped  reflector  in  a  conic  shower-bath  of  electric  light 
which  flooded  man  and  desk  and  left  the  corners  of  the 
room  in  a  penumbra  of  grateful  twilight. 

Kent  sat  just  outside  of  the  cone  of  radiance,  watch- 
ing Hildreth's  face  as  the  editor  read  stolidly  through 
the  contents  of  the  box  envelope.  It  was  an  instructive 
study  in  thought  dynamics.  There  was  a  gleam  of  bat- 
tle satisfaction  in  the  editorial  eye  when  Hildreth  faced 
the  last  sheet  down  upon  the  accumulation  of  evidence, 
saying : 

"You  didn't  overstate  the  fact  in  your  brag  about  the 
political  graves.  Only  this  isn't  a  spade;  it's  a  steam 
shovel.  Do  I  understand  you  are  giving  me  this  stuff 
to  use  as  I  please  ?" 

"Just  that,"  said  Kent. 

"And  you  have  made  it  serve  your  turn,  too  ?" 
(308) 


DEAD    WATEK   AND    QUICK  309 

"No."  Kent's  voice  was  sharp  and  crisp. 

'Isn't  that  what  you  got  it  for?" 

"Yes." 

"Then  why  don't  you  use  it?" 

"That  was  what  Bucks  wanted  to  know  a  little  while 
ago  when  he  came  to  my  rooms  to  try  to  buy  me  off. 
I  don't  think  I  succeeded  in  making  him  understand 
why  I  couldn't  traffic  with  it ;  and  possibly  you  wouldn't 
understand." 

"I  guess  I  do.  It's  public  property,  and  you  couldn't 
divert  it  into  private  channels.  Is  that  the  way  it 
struck  you  ?" 

"It  is  the  way  it  struck  a  friend  of  mine  whose  sense 
of  ultimate  right  and  wrong  hasn't  lost  its  fine  edge  in 
the  world-mill.  I  did  not  want  to  do  it." 

"Naturally/'  said  the  editor.  "Giving  it  up  means 
the  loss  of  all  you  have  been  working  for  in  the  railroad 
game.  I  wish  I  could  use  it,  just  as  it  stands." 

"Can't  you?" 

"I  am  afraid  not — effectively.  It  would  make  an 
issue  in  a  campaign;  or,  sprung  on  the  eve  of  an  elec- 
tion, it  might  down  the  ring  conclusively.  I  think  it 
would.  But  this  is  the  off  year,'  and  the  people  won't 
rise  to  a  political  issue — couldn't  make  themselves  felt 
if  they  should." 

"I  don't  agree  with  you.     You  have  your  case  all 


310  THE   GEAFTERS 

made  out,  with  the  evidence  in  sound  legal  form.  What 
is  to  prevent  your  trying  it  ?" 

"The  one  thing  that  you  ought  to  be  lawyer  enough 
to  see  at  a  glance.  There  is  no  court  to  try  it  in.  With 
the  Assembly  in  session  we  might  do  something:  as  it 
is,  we  can  only  yap  at  the  heels  of  the  ringsters,  and 
our  yapping  won't  help  you  in  the  railroad  fight.  What 
do  you  hear  from  Boston  ?" 

"Nothing  new.  The  stock  is  still  flat  on  the  market, 
with  the  stock-holders'  pool  holding  a  bare  majority, 
and  the  Plantagould  brokers  buying  in  driblets  wher- 
ever they  can  find  a  small  holder  who  is  willing  to  let 
go.  It  is  only  a  question  of  time;  and  a  very  short 
time  at  that." 

The  editor  wagged  his  head  in  sympathy. 

"I  wish  I  could  help  you,  David.  You've  done  a  big 
thing  for  me — for  the  Argus;  and  all  I  have  to  hand 
you  in  return  is  a  death  sentence.  MacFarlane  is  back." 

"Here?    In  town?" 

"Yes.  And  that  isn't  the  worst  of  it.  The  governor 
sent  for  him." 

"Have  you  any  idea  what  is  in  the  wind?"  asked 
Kent,  dry-lipped. 

"I  am  afraid  I  have.  My  young  men  have  been  nos- 
ing around  in  the  Trans-Western  affair,  and  several 
things  have  developed.  Matters  are  approaching  a  cri- 
sis. The  cut-rate  boom  is  about  to  collapse,  and  there 


DEAD   WATER   AND   QUICK  311 

is  trouble  brewing  in  the  labor  organizations.  If  Bucks 
doesn't  get  his  henchmen  out  of  it  pretty  soon,  they  will 
be  involved  in  the  smash — which  will  be  bad  for  them 
and  for  him,  politically." 

"I  developed  most  of  that  a  good  while  ago,"  Kent 
cut  in. 

"Yes;  I  know.  But  there  is  more  to  follow.  The 
stock-smashing  plan  was  all  right,  but  it  is  proving  too 
slow.  Now  they  are  going  to  do  something  else." 

"Can  you  give  it  a  name  ?"  asked  Kent,  nerving  him- 
self. 

"I  can.  But  first  tell  me  one  thing :  as  matters  stand, 
could  Guilford  dispose  of  the  road — sell  it  or  lease  it?'' 

"No;  he  would  first  have  to  be  made  permanent  re- 
ceiver and  be  given  authority  by  the  court." 

"Ah !  that  explains  Judge  MacFarlane's  return.  Now 
what  I  am  going  to  tell  you  is  the  deadest  of  secrets. 
It  came  to  me  from  one  of  the  Overland  officials,  and 
I'm  not  supposed  to  gossip.  Did  you  know  the  Over- 
land Short  Line  had  passed  under  Plantagould  domi- 
nation?" 

"I  know  they  elected  a  Plantagould  directory  at  the 
annual  meeting." 

"Exactly.  Well,  Guilford  is  going  to  lease  the  Trans- 
Western  to  its  competitor  for  a  term  of  ninety-nine 
years.  That's  your  death  sentence." 

Kent  sprang  to  his  feet,  and  what  he  said  is  unre- 


312  THE    GKAFTEES 

cordable.  He  was  not  a  profane  man,  but  the  sanguine 
temperament  would  assert  itself  explosively  in  moments 
of  sudden  stress. 

"When  is  this  thing  to  be  done  ?"  he  demanded,  when 
the  temperamental  gods  were  appeased  a  little. 

Hildreth  shrugged. 

"I  have  told  you  all  I  could,  and  rather  more  than 
I  had  any  right  to.  Open  the  door  behind  you,  won't 
you?  The  air  is  positively  sulphurous." 

Kent  opened  the  door,  entirely  missing  the  point  of 
the  sarcasm  in  his  heat. 

"But  you  must  have  some  idea,"  he  insisted. 

"I  haven't;  any  more  than  the  general  one  that  they 
won't  let  the  grass  grow  under  their  feet." 

"No.  God  blast  the  whole — I  wish  I  could  swear  in 
Sanscrit.  The  mother-tongue  doesn't  begin  to  do  jus- 
tice to  it.  Now  I  know  what  Bucks  meant  when  he  told 
me  to  take  my  railroad,  if  I  could  get  it.  He  had  the 
whole  thing  coopered  up  in  a  barrel  at  that  minute." 

"I  take  it  you  have  no  alternative  to  this,"  said  the 
editor,  tapping  the  pile  of  affidavits. 

"Not  a  cursed  shred  of  an  idea!  And,  Hildreth — " 
he  broke  off  short  because  once  again  the  subject  sud- 
denly grew  too  large  for  coherent  speech. 

Hildreth  disentangled  himself  from  the  legs  of  his 
chair  and  stood  up  to  put  his  hands  on  Kent's  shoulders. 

f<You  are  up  against  it  hard,  David,"  he  said;  and 


DEAD   WATER   AND    QUICK  313 

he  repeated :  "I'd  give  all  my  old  shoes  to  be  able  to 
help  you  out." 

"I  know  it/'  said  Kent;  and  then  he  turned  abruptly 
and  went  away. 

Between  nine  and  ten  o'clock  the  Game  evening  Kent 
was  walking  the  floor  of  his  room,  trying  vainly  to  per- 
suade himself  that  virtue  was  its  own  reward,  and  won- 
dering if  a  small  dose  of  chloral  hydrate  would  be  de- 
fensible under  the  cruel  necessity  for  sleep.  He  had 
about  decided  in  favor  of  the  drug  when  a  tap  at  the 
door  announced  the  coming  of  a  bell-boy  with  a  note. 
It  was  a  message  from  Portia. 

"If  you  have  thrown  away  your  chance  definitely,  and 
are  willing  to  take  a  still  more  desperate  one,  come  to 
see  me,"  she  wrote;  and  he  went  mechanically,  as  a 
drowning  man  catches  at  a  straw,  knowing  it  will  not 
save  him. 

The  house  in  Alameda  Square  was  dark  when  he 
went  up  the  walk ;  and  while  he  was  feeling  for  the  bell- 
push  his  summoner  called  to  him  out  of  the  electric 
stencilings  of  leaf  shadows  under  the  broad  veranda. 

"It  is  too  fine  a  night  to  stay  indoors,"  she  said. 
"Come  and  sit  in  the  hammock  while  I  scold  you  as  you 
deserve."  Ami  when  he  had  taken  the  hammock :  "Now 
give  an  account  of  yourself.  Where  have  you  been  for 
the  past  age  or  two  ?" 


314  'THE   GRAFTERS 

"Wallowing  around  in  the  lower  depths  of  the  place 
that  Dante  visited/'  he  admitted. 

"Don't  you  think  you  deserve  a  manhandling  ?" 

"I  suppose  so;  and  if  you  have  it  in  mind,  I  shall 
probably  get  it.  But  I  may  say  I'm  not  especially  anx- 
ious for  a  tongue-lashing  to-night." 

"Poor  boy!"  she  murmured,  in  mock  sympathy. 
"Does  it  hurt  to  be  truly  good  ?" 

"Try  it  some  time  when  you  have  a  little  leisure,  and 
see  for  yourself,"  he  retorted. 

She  laughed. 

"No;  I'll  leave  that  for  the  Miss  Brentwoods.  By 
the  way,  did  you  go  to  tell  the  household  good-by? 
Penelope  was  wondering  audibly  what  had  become  of 
you." 

"I  didn't  know  they  were  gone.  I  have  been  nowhere 
since  the  night  you  drove  me  out  with  contumely  and 
opprobrium." 

She  laughed  again. 

"You  must  have  dived  deep.  They  went  a  week  ago 
Tuesday,  and  you  lost  your  ghostly  adviser  and  your 
political  stage  manager  at  one  fell  swoop.  But  it  isn't 
wonderful  that  you  haven't  missed  Mr.  Ormsby.  Hav- 
ing elected  Miss  Brentwood  your  conscience-keeper-in- 
chief,  you  have  no  further  use  for  the  P.  S.  M." 

"And  you  have  no  further  use  for  me,  apparently," 


DEAD    WATER   AND    QUICK  315 

he  complained.  "Did  you  send  for  me  so  that  you 
might  abuse  me  in  the  second  edition?" 

"No;  I  wanted  to  give  you  a  bit  of  news,  and  to  re- 
peat an  old  question  of  mine.  Do  you  know  what  they 
are  going  to  do  next  with  your  railroad  ?" 

"Yes ;  Hildreth  told  me  this  afternoon." 

"Well,  what  are  you  going  to  do?" 

"Nothing.  There  is  nothing  to  be  done.  They  have 
held  to  the  form  of  legal  procedure  thus  far,  but  they 
won't  do  it  any  more.  They  will  take  MacFarlane  off 
in  a  corner  somewhere,  have  him  make  Guilford  per- 
manent receiver,  and  the  lease  to  the  Overland  will  be 
consummated  on  the  spot.  I  sha'n't  be  in  it." 

"Probably  not;  certainly  not  if  you  don't  try  to  get 
in  it.  And  that  brings  me  back  to  the  old  question. 
Are  you  big  enough,  David  ?" 

"If  you  think  I  haven't  been  big  enough  to  live  up  to 
my  opportunities  thus  far,  I'm  afraid  I  may  disappoint 
you  again,"  he  said  doubtfully. 

"You  have  disappointed  me,"  she  admitted.  "That 
is  why  I  am  asking:  I'd  like  to  be  reasonably  sure  your 
Jonathan  Edwardsy  notions  are  not  going  to  trip  us 
again." 

"Portia,  if  I  thought  you  really  meant  that.  .  . 
A  conscienceless  man  is  bad  enough,  God  knows;  but  a 
conscienceless  woman — " 


316  THE    GEAFTEES 

Her  laugh  was  a  decorous  little  shriek. 

"David,  you  are  not  big;  you  are  narrow,  narrow, 
narrow!  Is  there  then  no  other  code  of  morals  in  the 
round  world  save  that  which  the  accident  of  birth  has 
interleaved  with  your  New  England  Bible?  What  is 
conscience?  Is  it  an  absolute  standard  of  right  and 
wrong?  Or  is  it  merely  your  ideal  or  mine,  or  Shafiz 
Ullah  Khan's?" 

"You  may  call  it  all  the  hard  names  you  can  lay 
tongue  to,"  he  allowed.  "I'm  not  getting  much  com- 
fort out  of  it,  and  I  rather  enjoy  hearing  it  abused. 
But  you  are  thrusting  at  a  shadow  in  the  present  in- 
stance. Do  you  know  what  I  did  this  afternoon?" 

"How  should  I  know?" 

"I  don't  know  why  you  shouldn't:  you  know  every- 
thing that  happens.  But  I'll  tell  you.  I  had  been 
fighting  the  thing  over  from  start  to  finish  and  back 
again  ever  since  you  blessed  me  out  a  week  ago  last 
Monday,  and  at  the  wind-up  this  afternoon  I  took  the 
papers  out  of  the  bank  vault,  having  it  in  mind  to  go 
and  give  his  Excellency  a  bad  quarter  of  an  hour." 

"But  you  didn't  do  it?" 

"No,  he  saved  me  the  trouble.  While  I  was  getting 
ready  to  go  and  hunt  him,  his  card  came  up.  We  had 
it  out  in  my  rooms." 

"I'm  listening,"  she  said;  and  he  rehearsed  the  facts 
for  her,  concealing  nothing. 


DEAD   WATER   AND   QUICK  317 

"What  a  curious  thing  human  nature  is!"  she  com- 
mented, when  he  had  made  an  end.  "My  better  judg- 
ment says  you  were  all  kinds  of  a  somebody  for  not 
clinching  the  nail  when  you  had  it  so  well  driven  home. 
And  yet  I  can't  help  admiring  your  exalted  fanaticism. 
I  do  love  consistency,  and  the  courage  of  it.  But  tell 
me,  if  you  can,  how  far  these  fair-fighting  scruples  of 
yours  go.  You  have  made  it  perfectly  plain  that  if  a 
thief  should  steal  your  pocketbook,  you  would  suffer 
loss  before  you'd  compromise  with  him  to  get  it  back. 
But  suppose  you  should  catch  him  at  it :  would  you  feel 
compelled  to  call  a  policeman — or  would  you — " 

He  anticipated  her. 

"You  are  doing  me  an  injustice  on  the  other  side, 
now.  I'll  fight  as  furiously  as  you  like.  All  I  ask  is  to 
be  given  a  weapon  that  won't  bloody  my  hands." 

"Good!"  she  said  approvingly.  "I  think  I  have 
found  the  weapon,  but  it's  desperate,  desperate!  And 
0  David!  you've  got  to  have  a  cool  head  and  a  steady 
hand  when  you  use  it.  If  you  haven't,  it  will  kill  every- 
body within  the  swing  of  it — everybody  but  the  man  you 
are  trying  to  reach." 

"Draw  it  and  let  me  feel  its  edge,"  he  said  shortly. 

Her  chair  was  close  beside  the  low-swung  hammock. 
She  bent  to  his  ear  and  whispered  a  single  sentence. 
For  a  minute  or  two  he  sat  motionless,  weighing  and 


318  THE    GRAFTERS 

balancing  the  chance  of  success  against  the  swiftly  mul- 
tiplying difficulties  and  hazards. 

"You  call  it  desperate/'  he  said  at  length;  "if  there 
is  a  bigger  word  in  the  language,  you  ought  to  find  it 
and  use  it.  The  risk  is  that  of  a  forlorn  hope;  not  so 
much  for  me,  perhaps,  as  for  the  innocent — or  at  least 
ignorant — accomplices  I'll  have  to  enlist." 

She  nodded. 

"That  is  true.  But  how  much  is  your  railroad 
worth?" 

"It  is  bonded  for  fifty  millions  first,  and  twenty  mil- 
lions second  mortgage." 

"Well,  seventy  millions  are  worth  fighting  for :  worth 
a  very  considerable  risk,  I  should  say." 

"Yea"  And  after  another  thoughtful  interval :  "How 
did  you  come  to  think  of  it  ?" 

"It  grew  out  of  a  bit  of  talk  with  the  man  who  will 
have  to  put  the  apex  on  our  pyramid  after  we  have  done 
our  part." 

"Will  he  stand  by  us?  If  he  doesn't,  we  shall  all 
be  no  better  than  dead  men  the  morning  after  the  fact." 

She  clasped  her  hands  tightly  over  her  knee,  and 
said: 

"That  is  one  of  the  chances  we  must  take,  David ;  one 
of  the  many.  But  it  is  the  last  of  the  bridges  to  be 
crossed,  and  there  are  lots  of  them  in  between.  Are 


DEAD    WATER   AND   QUICK  319 

the  details  possible?  That  was  the  part  I  couldn't  go 
into  by  myself." 

He  took  other  minutes  for  reflection. 

"I  can't  tell,"  he  said  doubtfully.  "If  I  could  only 
know  how  much  time  we  have." 

Her  eyes  grew  luminous. 

"David,  what  would  you  do  without  me?"  she  asked. 
"To-morrow  night,  in  Stephen  Hawk's  office  in  Gaston, 
you  will  lose  your  railroad.  MacFarlane  is  there,  or  if 
he  isn't,  he'll  be  there  in  the  morning.  Bucks,  Guil- 
f ord  and  Hawk  will  go  down  from  here  to-morrow  eve- 
ning; and  the  Overland  people  are  to  come  up  from 
Midland  City  to  meet  them." 

There  was  awe  undisguised  in  the  look  he  gave  her, 
and  it  had  crept  into  his  voice  when  he  said : 

"Portia,  are  you  really  a  flesh-and-blood  woman?" 

She  smiled. 

"Meaning  that  your  ancestors  would  have  burned 
me  for  a  witch?  Perhaps  they  would:  I  think  quite 
likely  they  burned  women  who  made  better  martyrs. 
But  I  didn't  have  to  call  in  Flibbertigibbet.  The  pro- 
gramme is  a  carefully  guarded  secret,  to  be  sure;  but 
it  is  known — it  had  to  be  known — to  a  number  of  people 
outside  of  our  friends  the  enemy.  You've  heard  the 
story  of  the  inventor  and  his  secret,  haven't  you?" 

"No." 


320  THE    GEAFTEES 

"Well,  the  man  had  invented  something,  and  he  told 
the  secret  of  it  to  his  son.  After  a  little  the  son  wanted 
to  tell  it  to  a  friend.  The  old  man  said,  'Hold  on;  I 
know  it — that's  one' — holding  up  one  finger — 'you  know 
it — that's  eleven' — holding  up  another  finger  beside  the 
first;  'and  now  if  you  tell  this  other  fellow,  that'll  be 
one  hundred  and  eleven' — holding  up  three  fingers. 
That  is  the  case  with  this  programme.  One  of  the  one 
hundred  and  eleven — he  is  a  person  high  up  in  the  man- 
agement of  the  Overland  Short  Line — dropped  a  few 
words  in  my  hearing  and  I  picked  them  up.  That's 
all." 

"It  is  fearfully  short — the  time,  I  mean,"  he  said 
after  another  pause.  "We  can't  count  on  any  help  from 
any  one  in  authority.  Guilford's  broom  has  swept  the 
high-salaried  official  corners  clean.  But  the  wage-peo- 
ple are  mutinous  and  ripe  for  anything.  I'll  go  and 
find  out  where  we  stand."  And  he  groped  on  the  floor 
of  the  veranda  for  his  hat. 

"No,  wait  a  minute,"  she  interposed.  "We  are  not 
quite  ready  to  adjourn  yet.  There  remains  a  little  mat- 
ter of  compensation — your  compensation — to  be  con- 
sidered. You  are  still  on  the  company's  pay-rolls  ?" 

"In  a  way,  yes;  as  its  legal  representative  on  the 
ground." 

"That  won't  do.     If  you  carry  this  thing  through 


DEAD   WATER   AND   QUICK  321 

successfully  it  must  be  on  your  own  account,  and  not 
as  the  company's  paid  servant.  You  must  resign  and 
make  terms  with  Boston  beforehand;  and  that,  too, 
without  telling  Boston  what  you  propose  to  do." 

He  haggled  a  little  at  that. 

"The  company  is  entitled  to  my  services,"  he  as- 
serted. 

"It  is  entitled  to  what  it  pays  for — your  legal  services. 
But  this  is  entirely  different.  You  will  be  acting  upon 
your  own  initiative,  and  you'll  have  to  spend  money 
like  water  at  your  own  risk.  You  must  be  free  to  deal 
with  Boston  as  an  outsider." 

"But  I  have  no  money  to  spend,"  he  objected. 

Again  the  brown  eyes  grew  luminous;  and  again  she 
said: 

"What  would  you  do  without  me?  Happily,  my  in- 
formation came  early  enough  to  enable  me  to  get  a  let- 
ter to  Mr.  Ormsby.  He  answered  promptly  by  wire  this 
morning.  Here  is  his  telegram." 

She  had  been  winding  a  tightly  folded  slip  of  paper 
around  her  fingers,  and  she  smoothed  it  out  and  gave 
it  to  him.  He  held  it  in  a  patch  of  the  electric  light 
between  the  dancing  leaf  shadows  and  read : 

"Plot  Number  Two  approved.  Have  wired  one  hun- 
dred thousand  to  Kent's  order  Security  Bank.  Have 
him  draw  as  he  needs." 


322  THE   GEAFTEES 

"So  now  you  see,"  she  went  on,  "you  have  the  sinews 
of  war.  But  you  must  regard  it  as  an  advance  and  name 
your  fee  to  the  Boston  folk  so  you  can  pay  it  back." 

He  protested  again,  rather  weakly. 

"It  looks  like  extortion ;  like  another  graft/'  he  said ; 
and  now  she  lost  patience  with  him. 

"Of  all  the  Puritan  fanatics !"  she  cried.  "If  it  were 
a  simple  commercial  transaction  by  which  you  would 
save  your  clients  a  round  seventy  million  dollars,  which 
would  otherwise  be  lost,  would  you  scruple  to  take  a 
proportionate  fee  ?" 

"No;  certainly  not." 

"Well,  then;  you  go  and  tell  Mr.  Loring  to  wire  his 
Advisory  Board,  and  to  do  it  to-night." 

"But  I'll  have  to  name  a  figure/'  said  Kent. 

"Of  course,"  she  replied. 

Kent  thought  about  it  for  a  long  minute.  Then  he 
said :  "I  wonder  if  ten  thousand  dollars,  and  expenses, 
would  paralyze  them?" 

Miss  Van  Brock's  comment  was  a  little  shriek  of  de- 
ris^on. 

"I  knew  you'd  make  difficulties  when  it  came  to  the 
paying  part  of  it,  and  since  I  didn't  know,'  myself,  I 
wired  Mr.  Ormsby  again.  Here  is  what  he  says,"  and 
she  untwisted  a  second  telegram  and  read  it  to  him. 
"  Tee  should  not  be  less  than  five  per  cent,  of  bonded 


DEAD   WATER   AND   QUICK  323 

indebtedness ;  four-fifths  in  stock  at  par ;  one-fifth  cash ; 
no  cure,  no  pay/  " 

"Three  million  five  hundred  thousand  dollars!" 
gasped  Kent. 

"It's  only  nominally  that  much,"  she  laughed.  "The 
stock  part  of  it  is  merely  your  guaranty  of  good  faith: 
it  is  worth  next  to  nothing  now,  and  it  will  be  many 
a  long  day  before  it  goes  to  par,  even  if  you  are  suc- 
cessful in  saving  its  life.  So  your  magnificent  fee 
shrinks  to  seven  hundred  thousand  dollars,  less  your 
expenses." 

"But  heavens  and  earth !  that's  awful !"  said  Kent. 

"Not  when  you  consider  it  as  a  surgeon's  risk.  You 
happen  to  be  the  one  man  who  has  the  idea,  and  if  it 
isn't  carried  out,  the  patient  is  going  to  die  to-morrow 
night,  permanently.  You  are  the  specialist  in  this  case, 
and  specialists  come  high.  Now  you  may  go  and  at- 
tend to  the  preliminary  details,  if  you  like." 

He  found  his  hat  and  stood  up.  She  stood  with  him ; 
but  when  he  took  her  hand  she  made  him  sit  down 
again. 

"You  have  at  least  three  degrees  of  fever!"  she  ex- 
claimed; "or  is  it  only  the  three-million-five-huridred- 
thousand-dollar  shock?  What  have  you  been  doing  to 
yourself  ?" 

"Nothing,  I  assure  you.  I  haven't  been  sleeping  very 
well  for  a  few  nights.  But  that  is  only  natural." 


324  THE    GEAFTEES 

"And  I  said  you  must  have  a  cool  head!  Will  you 
do  exactly  as  I  tell  you  to?" 

"If  you  don't  make  it  too  hard." 

"Take  the  car  down-town — don't  walk — and  after 
you  have  made  Mr.  Loring  send  his  message  to  Boston, 
you  go  straight  to  Doctor  Biddle.  Tell  him  what  is  the 
matter  with  you,  and  that  you  need  to  sleep  the  clock 
around." 

"But  the  time!"  he  protested.  "I  shall  need  every 
hour  between  now  and  to-morrow  night !" 

"One  clear-headed  hour  is  worth  a  dozen  muddled 
ones.  You  do  as  I  say." 

"I  hate  drugs,"  he  said,  rising  again. 

"So  do  I;  but  there  is  a  time  for  everything  under 
the  sun.  It  is  a  crying  necessity  that  you  go  into  this 
fight  perfectly  fit  and  with  all  your  wits  about  you.  If 
you  don't,  somebody — several  somebodies — will  land  in 
the  penitentiary.  Will  you  mind  me?" 

"Yes,"  he  promised ;  and  this  time  he  got  away. 


XXVI 

ON  THE  HIGH  PLAINS 

Much  to  Elinor's  relief,  and  quite  as  much,  perhaps, 
to  Penelope's,  Mrs.  Brentwood  tired  of  Breezeland  Inn 
in  less  than  a  fortnight  and  began  to  talk  of  returning 
to  the  apartment  house  in  the  capital. 

Pressed  to  give  a  reason  for  her  dissatisfaction,  the 
younger  sister  might  have  been  at  a  loss  to  account  for 
it  in  words ;  but  Elinor's  desire  to  cut  the  outing  short 
was  based  upon  pride  and  militant  shame.  After  many 
trap-settings  she  had  succeeded  in  making  her  mother 
confess  that  the  stay  at  Breezeland  was  at  Ormsby's 
expense;  and  not  all  of  Mrs.  Brentwood's  petulant  jus- 
tifyings  could  remove  the  sting  of  the  nettle  of  obliga- 
tion. 

"There  is  no  reason  in  the  world  why  you  should 
make  so  much  of  it :  I  am  your  mother,  and  I  ought  to 
know,"  was  Mrs.  Brentwood's  dictum.  "You  wouldn't 
have  any  scruples  if  we  were  his  guests  on  the  Amphi- 
trite  or  in  his  country  house  on  Long  Island." 
(325) 


326  THE   GRAFTERS 

"That  would  be  different,"  Elinor  contended.  "We 
are  not  his  guests  here;  we  are  his  pensioners." 

"Nonsense!"  frowned  the  mother.  "Isn't  it  begin- 
ning to  occur  to  you  that  beggars  shouldn't  be  choosers  ? 
And,  besides,  so  far  as  you  are  concerned,  you  are  only 
anticipating  a  little." 

It  was  an  exceedingly  injudicious,  not  to  say  brutal 
way  of  putting  it ;  and  the  blue-gray  eyes  flashed  fire. 

"Can't  you  see  that  you  are  daily  making  a  marriage 
between  us  more  and  more  impossible  ?"  was  the  bitter 
rejoinder.  Elinor's  metier  was  cool  composure  under 
fire,  but  she  was  not  always  able  to  compass  it. 

Mrs.  Brentwood  fanned  herself  vigorously.  She  had 
been  aching  to  have  it  out  with  this  self-willed  young 
woman  who  was  playing  fast  and  loose  with  attainable 
millions,  and  the  hour  had  struck. 

"What  made  you  break  it  off  with  Brookes  Ormsby  ?" 
she  snapped;  adding:  "I  don't  wonder  you  were 
ashamed  to  tell  me  about  it." 

"I  did  not  break  it  off;  and  I  was  not  ashamed." 
Elinor  had  regained  her  self-control,  and  the  angry 
light  in  the  far-seeing  eyes  was  giving  place  to  the  cool 
gray  blankness  which  she  cultivated. 

"That  is  what  Brookes  told  me,  but  I  didn't  believe 
him,"  said  the  mother.  "It's  all  wrong,  anyway,  and  I 
more  than  half  believe  David  Kent  is  at  the  bottom  of 
it." 


ON   THE   HIGH   PLAINS  327 

Elinor  left  her  chair  and  went  to  the  window,  which 
looked  down  on  the  sanatorium,  the  ornate  parterre, 
and  the  crescent  driveway.  These  family  bickerings 
were  very  trying  to  her,  and  the  longing  to  escape  them 
was  sometimes  strong  enough  to  override  cool  reason 
and  her  innate  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things. 

In  her  moments  of  deepest  depression  she  told  her- 
self that  the  prolonged  struggle  was  making  her  hard 
and  cynical ;  that  she  was  growing  more  and  more  on  the 
Grimkie  side  and  shrinking  on  the  Brentwood.  With 
the  unbending  uprightness  of  the  Grimkie  forebears 
there  went  a  prosaic  and  unmalleable  strain  destructive 
alike  of  sentiment  and  the  artistic  ideals.  This  strain 
was  in  her  blood,  and  from  childhood  she  had  fought  it, 
hopefully  at  times,  and  at  other  times,  as  now,  despair- 
ingly. There  were  tears  in  her  eyes  when  she  turned 
to  the  window;  and  if  they  were  merely  tears  of  self- 
pity,  they  were  better  than  none.  Once,  in  the  halcyon 
summer,  David  Kent  had  said  that  the  most  hardened 
criminal  in  the  dock  was  less  dangerous  to  humanity 
than  the  woman  who  had  forgotten  how  to  cry. 

But  into  the  turmoil  of  thoughts  half  indignant, 
half  self -compassionate,  came  reproach  and  a  great  wave 
of  tenderness  filial.  She  saw,  as  with  a  sudden  gift  of 
retrospection,  her  mother's  long  battle  with  inadequacy, 
and  how  it  had  aged  her;  saw,  too,  that  the  battle  had 
been  fought  unselfishly,  since  she  knew  her  mother's 


328  THE   GRAFTERS 

declaration  that  she  could  contentedly  "go  back  to  noth- 
ing" was  no  mere  petulant  boast.  It  was  for  her  daugh- 
ters that  she  had  grown  thin  and  haggard  and  irritable 
under  the  persistent  reverses  of  fortune ;  it  was  for  them 
that  she  was  sinking  the  Grimkie  independence  in  the 
match-making  mother. 

The  tears  in  Elinor's  eyes  were  not  altogether  of  self- 
pity  when  she  put  her  back  to  the  window.  Ormsby 
was  coming  up  the  curved  driveway  in  his  automobile, 
and  she  had  seen  him  but  dimly  through  the  rising 
mist  of  emotion. 

"Have  you  set  your  heart  upon  this  thing,  mother  ? — 
but  I  know  you  have.  And  I — I  have  tried  as  I  could 
to  be  just  and  reasonable;  to  you  and  Penelope,  and 
to  Brookes  Ormsby.  He  is  nobleness  itself:  it  is  a 
shame  to  give  him  the  shadow  when  he  so  richly  de- 
serves the  substance." 

She  spoke  rapidly,  almost  incoherently;  and  the 
mother-love  in  the  woman  who  was  careful  and  troubled 
about  the  things  that  perish  put  the  match-maker  to  the 
wall.  It  was  almost  terrifying  to  see  Elinor,  the  strong- 
hearted,  the  self-contained,  breaking  down  like  other 
mothers'  daughters.  So  it  was  the  mother  who  held  out 
her  arms,  and  the  daughter  ran  to  go  down  on  her  knees 
at  the  chair-side,  burying  her  face  in  the  lap  of  com- 
forting. 

"There,  there,  Ellie,  child;  don't  cry.     It's  terrible 


ON   THE    HIGH   PLAINS  329 

to  hear  you  sob  like  that,"  she  protested,  her  own  voice 
shaking  in  sympathy.  "I  have  been  thinking  only  of 
you  and  your  future,  and  fearing  weakly  that  you 
couldn't  bear  the  hard  things.  But  we'll  bear  them  to- 
gether— we  three ;  and  I'll  never  say  another  word  about 
Brookes  Ormsby  and  what  might  have  been." 

"0  mother!  you  are  making  it  harder  than  ever, 
now,"  was  the  tearful  rejoinder.  "I — there  is  no  reason 
why  I  should  be  so  obstinate.  I  haven't  even  the  one 
poor  excuse  you  are  making  for  me  down  deep  in  your 
heart." 

"David  Kent  ?"  said  the  mother. 

The  bowed  head  nodded  a  wordless  assent. 

"I  sha'n't  say  that  I  haven't  suspected  him  all  along, 
dear.  I  am  afraid  I  have.  I  have  nothing  against  him. 
But  he  is  a  poor  man,  Elinor;  and  we  are  poor,  too. 
You'd  be  miserably  unhappy." 

"If  he  stays  poor,  it  is  I  who  am  to  blame," — this 
most  contritely.  "He  had  a  future  before  him:  the 
open  door  was  his  winning  in  the  railroad  fight,  and  I 
closed  it  against  him." 

"You  ?"  said  the  mother,  astonished. 

"Yes.  I  told  him  he  couldn't  go  on  in  the  way  he 
meant  to.  I  made  it  a  matter  of  conscience ;  and  he — 
he  has  turned  back  when  he  might  have  fought  it  out 
and  made  a  name  for  himself,  and  saved  us  all.  And  it 
was  such  a  hair-splitting  thing!  All  the  world  would 


330  THE   GRAFTEKS 

have  applauded  him  if  he  had  gone  on;  and  there  wa; 
only  one  woman  in  all  the  world  to  pry  into  the  secret 
places  of  his  soul  and  stir  up  the  sleeping  doubt !" 

Now,  if  all  the  thrifty,  gear-getting  "faculty"  of  the 
dead  and  gone  Grimkies  had  become  thin  and  diluted 
and  inefficient  in  this  Mrs.  Hepzibah,  last  of  the  name, 
the  strong  wine  and  iron  of  the  blood  of  uprightness  had 
come  down  to  her  unstrained. 

"Tell  me  all  about  it,  daughter,"  she  adjured;  and 
when  the  tale  was  told,  she  patted  the  bowed  head  ten- 
derly and  spoke  the  words  of  healing. 

"You  did  altogether  right,  Ellie,  dear;  I — I  am  proud 
of  you,  daughter.  And  if,  as  you  say,  you  were  the  only 
one  to  do  it,  that  doesn't  matter;  it  was  all  the  more 
necessary.  Are  you  sure  he  gave  it  up  ?" 

Elinor  rose  and  stood  with  clasped  hands  beside  her 
mother's  chair;  a  very  pitiful  and  stricken  half-sister 
of  the  self-reliant,  dependable  young  woman  who  had 
boasted  herself  the  head  of  the  household. 

"I  have  no  means  of  knowing  what  he  has  done,"  she 
said  slowly.  "But  I  know  the  man.  He  has  turned 
back." 

There  was  a  tap  at  the  door  and  a  servant  was  come 
to  say  that  Mr.  Brookes  Ormsby  was  waiting  with  his 
auto-car.  Was  Miss  Brentwood  nearly  ready? 

Elinor  said,  "In  a  minute,"  and  when  the  door  closed^ 


ON   THE   HIGH   PLAINS  331 

she  made  a  confidante  of  her  mother  for  the  first  time 
since  her  childhood  days. 

"I  know  what  you  have  suspected  ever  since  that  sum- 
mer in  New  Hampshire,  and  it  is  true,"  she  confessed. 
"I  do  love  him — as  much  as  I  dare  to  without  knowing 
whether  he  cares  for  me.  Must  I — may  I— eay  yes 
to  Brookes  Ormsby  without  telling  him  the  whole 
truth?" 

"Oh,  my  dear !  You  couldn't  do  that !"  was  the  quick 
reply. 

"You  mean  that  I  am  not  strong  enough?  But  I 
am;  and  Mr.  Ormsby  is  manly  enough  and  generous 
enough  to  meet  me  half-way.  Is  there  any  other  honest 
thing  to  do,  mother  ?" 

Mrs.  Hepzibah  shook  her  head  deliberately  and  de- 
terminedly, though  she  knew  she  was  shaking  the  Orms- 
by millions  into  the  abyss  of  the  unattainable. 

"No ;  it  is  his  just  due.  But  I  can't  help  being  sorry 
for  him,  Ellie.  What  will  you  do  if  he  says  it  doesn't 
make  any  difference?" 

The  blue-gray  eyes  were  downcast. 

"I  don't  know.  Having  asked  so  much,  and  accepted 
so  much  from  him — it  shall  be  as  he  says,  mother." 

The  afternoon  had  been  all  that  a  summer  afternoon 
on  the  brown  highlands  can  be,  and  the  powerful  tour- 


332  THE    GKAFTEKS 

ing  car  had  swept  them  from  mile  to  mile  over  the  dun 
hills  like  an  earth-skimming  dragon  whose  wing-beat 
was  the  muffled,  explosive  thud  of  the  motor. 

Through  most  of  the  miles  Elinor  had  given  herself 
up  to  silent  enjoyment  of  the  rapture  of  swift  mo- 
tion, and  Ormsby  had  respected  her  mood,  as  he  always 
did.  But  when  they  were  on  the  high  hills  beyond  the 
mining-camp  of  Megilp,  and  he  had  thrown  the  engines 
out  of  gear  to  brake  the  car  gently  down  the  long  in- 
clines, there  was  room  for  speech. 

"This  is  our  last  spin  together  on  the  high  plains, 
I  suppose,"  he  said.  "Your  mother  has  fixed  upon  to- 
morrow for  our  return  to  town,  hasn't  she  ?" 

Elinor  confirmed  it  half-absently.  She  had  been 
keyed  up  to  face  the  inevitable  in  this  drive  with  Orms- 
by, and  she  was  afraid  now  that  he  was  going  to  break 
her  resolution  by  a  dip  into  the  commonplaces. 

"Are  you  glad  or  sorry?"  he  asked. 

Her  reply  was  evasive. 

"I  have  enjoyed  the  thin,  clean  air  and  the  freedom 
of  the  wide  horizons.  Who  could  help  it  ?" 

"But  you  have  not  been  entirely  happy?" 

It  was  on  her  lips  to  say  some  conventional  thing 
about  the  constant  jarring  note  in  all  human  happiness, 
but  she  changed  it  to  a  simple  "No." 

"May  I  try  if  I  can  give  the  reason  ?" 

She  made  a  reluctant  little  gesture  of  assent;  some 


ON   THE   HIGH   PLAINS  333 

such  signal  of  acquiescence  as  Marie  Antoinette  may 
have  given  the  waiting  headsman. 

"You  have  been  afraid  every  day  lest  I  should  begin 
a  second  time  to  press  you  for  an  answer,  haven't  you  ?" 

She  could  not  thrust  and  parry  with  him.  They  were 
past  all  that. 

"Yes,"  she  admitted  briefly. 

"You  break  my  heart,  Elinor,"  he  said,  after  a  long 
pause.  "But" — with  a  sudden  tightening  of  the  lips — 
"I'm  not  going  to  break  yours." 

She  understood  him,  and  her  eyes  filled  quickly  with 
the  swift  shock  of  gratitude. 

"If  you  had  made  a  study  of  womankind  through 
ten  lifetimes  instead  of  a  part  of  one,  you  could  not 
know  when  and  how  to  strike  truer  and  deeper,"  she 
said;  and  then,  softly:  "Why  can't  you  make  me  love 
you,  Brookes  ?" 

He  took  his  foot  from  the  brake-pedal,  and  for  ten 
seconds  the  released  car  shot  down  the  slope  unhindered. 
Then  he  checked  the  speed  and  answered  her. 

"A  little  while  ago  I  should  have  said  I  didn't  know ; 
but  now  I  do  know.  It  is  because  you  love  David  Kent : 
you  loved  him  before  I  had  my  chance." 

She  did  not  deny  the  principal  fact,  but  she  gave 
him  his  opportunity  to  set  it  aside  if  he  could — and 
would. 


334  THE   GRAFTERS 

"Call  it  foolish,  romantic  sentiment,  if  you  like. 
Is  there  no  way  to  shame  me  out  of  it  ?" 

He  shook  his  head  slowly. 

"You  don't  mean  that." 

"But  if  I  say  that  I  do ;  if  I  insist  that  I  am  willing 
to  be  shamed  out  of  it." 

His  smile  was  that  of  a  brother  who  remembers 
tardily  to  be  loving-kind.  , ;... 

"I  shall  leave  that  task  for  some  one  who  cares  less 
for  you  and  for  your  true  happiness  than  I  do,  or 
ever  shall.  And  it  will  be  a  mighty  thankless  service 
that  that  'some  one'  will  render  you." 

"But  I  ought  to  be  whipped  and  sent  to  bed,"  she 
protested,  almost  tearfully.  "Do  you  know  what  I  have 
done? — how  I  have — " 

She  could  not  quite  put  it  in  words,  even  for  him, 
and  he  helped  her  generously,  as  before. 

"I  know  what  Kent  hasn't  done;  which  is  more  to 
the  point.  But  he  will  do  it  fast  enough  if  you  will 
give  him  half  a  chance." 

"No,"  she  said  definitively. 

"I  say  yes.  One  thing,  and  one  thing  only,  has  kept 
him  from  telling  you  any  time  since  last  autumn :  that 
is  a  sort  of  finical  loyalty  to  me.  I  saw  how  matters 
stood  when  he  came  aboard  of  our  train  at  Gaston — 
I'm  asking  you  to  believe  that  I  didn't  know  it  before — 


ON   THE   HIGH   PLAINS  335 

and  I  saw  then  that  my  only  hope  was  to  make  a  hand- 
fast  friend  of  him.  And  I  did  it." 

"I  believe  you  can  do  anything  you  try  to  do,"  she 
said  warmly. 

This  time  his  smile  was  a  mere  grimace. 

"You  will  have  to  make  one  exception,  after  this ;  and 
so  shall  I.  And  since  it  is  the  first  of  any  consequence 
in  all  my  mounting  years,  it  grinds.  I  can't  throw  an- 
other man  out  of  the  window  and  take  his  place." 

"If  you  were  anything  but  what  you  are,  you  would 
have  thrown  him  out  of  the  window  another  way,"  she 
rejoined. 

"That  would  have  been  a  dago's  trick;  not  a  white 
man's,"  he  asserted.  "I  suppose  I  might  have  got  in 
his  way  and  played  the  dog  in  the  manger  generally, 
and  you  would  have  stuck  to  your  word  and  married 
me,  but  I  am  not  looking  for  that  kind  of  a  winning.  I 
don't  mind  confessing  that  I  played  my  last  card  when 
I  released  you  Urom  your  engagement.  I  said  to  my- 
self: If  that  doesn't  break  down  the  barriers,  nothing 
will." 

She  looked  up  quickly. 

"You  will  never  know  how  near  it  came  to  doing  it, 
Brookes." 

"But  it  didn't  quite?" 

"No,  it  didnl  quite." 


336  THE    GEAFTEES 

The  brother-smile  came  again. 

"Let's  paste  that  leaf  down  and  turn  the  other;  the 
one  that  has  David  Kent's  name  written  at  the  top. 
He  is  going  to  succeed  all  around,  Elinor;  and  I  am 
going  to  help  him — for  his  sake,  as  well  as  yours." 

"No"  she  dissented.  "He  is  going  to  fail;  and  I 
am  to  blame  for  it." 

He  looked  at  her  sidewise. 

"So  you  were  at  the  bottom  of  that,  were  you?  I 
thought  as  much,  and  tried  to  make  him  admit  it,  but 
he  wouldn't.  What  was  your  reason?" 

"I  gave  it  to  him :  I  can't  give  it  to  you." 

"I  guess  not,"  he  laughed.  "I  wasn't  born  on  the 
right  side  of  the  Berkshire  Hills  to  appreciate  it.  But 
really,  you  mustn't  interfere.  As  I  say,  we  are  going  to 
make  something  of  David;  and  a  little  conscience — of 
the  right  old  Pilgrim  Fathers'  brand — goes  a  long  way 
in  politics." 

"But  you  promised  me  you  were  not  going  to  spoil 
him — only  it  doesn't  matter ;  you  can't." 

Ormsby  chuckled  openly,  and  when  she  questioned 
"What?"  he  said: 

"I  was  just  wondering  what  you  would  say  if  you 
knew  what  he  is  into  now;  if  you  could  guess,  for  in- 
stance, that  his  backers  have  put  up  a  cool  hundred 
thousand  to  be  used  as  he  sees  fit  ?" 


ON   THE   HIGH   PLAINS  337 

"Oh!"  she  exclaimed;  and  there  was  dismay  and 
sharp  disappointment  in  her  voice.  "You  don't  mean 
that  he  is  going  to  bribe  these  men  ?" 

"No/*  he  said,  relenting.  "As  a  matter  of  fact,  I 
don't  know  precisely  what  he  is  doing  with  the  money, 
but  I  guess  it  is  finding  its  way  into  legitimate  chan- 
nels. I'll  make  him  give  me  an  itemized  expense  ac- 
count for  your  benefit  when  it's  all  over,  if  you  like." 

"It  would  be  kinder  to  tell  me  more  about  it  now," 
she  pleaded. 

"No ;  I'll  let  him  have  that  pleasure,  after  the  fact — 
if  we  can  get  him  pardoned  out  before  you  go  back 
East." 

She  was  silent  so  long  that  he  stole  another  sidewise 
look  between  his  snubbings  of  the  brake-pedal.  Her 
face  was  white  and  still,  like  the  face  of  one  suddenly 
frost-smitten,  and  he  was  instantly  self-reproachful. 

"Don't  look  that  way,"  he  begged.  "It  hurts  me; 
makes  me  feel  how  heavy  my  hand  is  when  I'm  doing 
my  best  to  make  it  light.  He  is  trying  a  rather  desper- 
ate experiment,  to  be  sure,  but  he  is  in  no  immediate 
personal  danger.  I  believe  it  or  I  shouldn't  be  here;  I 
should  be  with  him." 

She  asked  no  more  questions,  being  unwilling  to 
tempt  him  to  break  confidence  with  Kent.  But  she  was 
thinking  of  all  the  desperate  things  a  determined  man 


338  THE    GEAFTERS 

with  temperamental  unbalancings  might  do  when  the 
touring  car  rolled  noiselessly  down  the  final  hill  into 
the  single  street  of  Megilp. 

There  was  but  one  vehicle  in  the  street  at  the  mo- 
ment; a  freighter's  ore-wagon  drawn  by  a  team  of 
mules,  meekest  and  most  shambling-prosaic  of  their 
tribe.  The  motor-car  was  running  on  the  spent  ve- 
locity of  the  descent,  and  Ormsby  thought  to  edge  past 
without  stopping.  But  at  the  critical  instant  the  mules 
gave  way  to  terror,  snatched  the  heavy  wagon  into  the 
opposite  plank  walk,  and  tried  to  climb  a  near-by  tele- 
phone pole.  Ormsby  put  his  foot  on  the  brake  and 
something  snapped  under  the  car. 

"What  was  that?"  Elinor  asked;  and  Ormsby  got 
down  to  investigate. 

"It  is  our  brake  connection,"  he  announced,  after  a 
brief  inspection.  "And  we  are  five  good  miles  from 
Hudgins  and  his  repair  kit." 

A  ring  of  town  idlers  was  beginning  to  form  about 
them.  An  automobile  was  still  enough  of  a  rarity  in 
the  mining-camp  to  draw  a  crowd. 

"Busted  ?"  inquired  one  of  the  onlookers. 

Ormsby  nodded,  and  asked  if  there  were  a  machinist 
in  the  camp. 

"Yep,"  said  the  spokesman;  "up  at  the  Blue  Jay 
mine." 


ON   THE   HIGH   PLAINS  339 

"Somebody  go  after  him,"  suggested  Ormsby,  flip- 
ping a  coin ;  and  a  boy  started  on  a  run. 

The  waiting  was  a  little  awkward.  The  ringing  idlers 
were  good-natured  but  curious.  Ormsby  stood  by  and 
answered  questions  multiform,  diverting  curiosity  from 
the  lady  to  the  machine.  Presently  the  spokesman  said : 

"Is  this  here  the  steam-buggy  that  helped  a  crowd  of 
you  fellers  to  get  away  from  Jud  Byers  and  his  posse 
one  day  a  spell  back  ?" 

"No,"  said  Ormsby.  Then  he  remembered  the  eve- 
ning of  small  surprises — the  racing  tally-ho  with  the 
Inn  auto-car  to  help;  and,  more  pointedly  now,  the 
singular  mirage  effect  in  the  lengthening  perspective 
as  the  east-bound  train  shot  away  from  Agua  Caliente. 

"What  was  the  trouble  that  day?"  he  asked,  putting 
in  a  question  on  his  side. 

"A  little  ruction  up  at  the  Twin  Sisters.  There  was 
a  furss,  an'  a  gun  went  off,  accidintally  on  purpose 
killin'  Jim  Harkins,"  was  the  reply. 

The  machinist  was  come  from  the  Blue  Jay,  and 
Ormsby  helped  Elinor  out  of  her  seat  while  the  repairs 
were  making.  The  town  office  of  the  Blue  Jay  was  just 
across  the  street,  'and  he  took  her  there  and  begged 
house-room  and  a  chair  for  her,  making  an  excuse  that 
he  must  go  and  see  to  the  brake-mending. 

But  once  outside  he  promptly  stultified  himself,  let- 


340  THE   GRAFTERS 

ting  the  repairs  take  care  of  themselves  while  he  went 
in  search  of  one  Jud  Byers.  The  deputy  sheriff  was 
not  hard  to  find.  Normally  and  in  private  life  he  was 
the  weigher  for  the  Blue  Jay ;  and  Ormsby  was  directed 
to  the  scale  shanty  which  served  as  the  weigher's  office. 

The  interview  was  brief  and  conclusive;  was  little 
more  than  a  rapid  fire  of  question  and  answer;  and  for 
the  greater  part  the  sheriff's  affirmatives  were  heartily 
eager.  Yes,  certainly;  if  the  thing  could  be  brought 
to  pass,  he,  Byers,  would  surely  do  his  part.  All  he 
asked  was  an  hour  or  two  in  which  to  prepare. 

"You  shall  have  all  the  time  there  is,"  was  the  re- 
ply. "Have  you  a  Western  Union  wire  here  ?" 

"No ;  nothing  but  the  railroad  office." 

"That  won't  do ;  they'd  stop  the  message.  How  about 
the  Inn?" 

"Breezeland  has  a  Western  Union  all  right;  wire 
your  notice  there,  and  I'll  fix  to  have  it  'phoned  over. 
I  don't  believe  it  can  be  worked,  though,"  added  the 
deputy,  doubtfully. 

"We  can't  tell  till  we  try,"  said  Ormsby;  and  he 
hurried  back  to  his  car  to  egg  on  the  machinist  with 
golden  promises  contingent  upon  haste. 

Miss  Brentwood  found  her  companion  singularly  si- 
lent on  the  five-mile  race  to  Breezeland;  but  the  light- 
ning speed  at  which  he  drove  the  car  put  conversation 


ON   THE   HIGH   PLAINS  341 

out  of  the  question.  At  the  hotel  he  saw  her  into  the 
lift  with  decent  deliberation;  but  the  moment  she  was 
off  his  hands  he  fairly  ran  to  the  telegrapher's  alcove 
in  the  main  hall. 

"Have  you  a  Western  Union  wire  to  the  capital  di- 
rect ?"  he  inquired. 

The  young  man  snapped  his  key  and  said  he  had. 

"It  has  no  connection  with  the  Trans- Western  rail- 
road offices?" 

"None  whatever." 

Ormsby  dashed  off  a  brief  message  to  Kent,  giving 
three  or  four  addresses  at  which  he  might  be  found. 

"Send  that,  and  have  them  try  the  Union  Station 
train  platform  first.  Don't  let  them  spare  expense  at 
the  other  end,  and  if  you  can  bring  proof  of  delivery  to 
Eoom  261  within  half  an  hour,  it  means  a  month's  pay 
to  you,  individually.  Can  you  do  it?" 

But  the  operator  was  already  claiming  the  wire,  writ- 
ing "deth,"  "deth,"  "deth,"  as  rapidly  as  his  fingers 
could  shake  off  the  dots  and  dashes. 


XXVII 

BY  ORDER  OF  THE  COURT 

Between  the  hours  of  eight-thirty  and  ten  p.  M.  the 
Union  Passenger  Station  at  the  capital  presents  a  mov- 
ing and  spirited  spectacle.  Within  the  hour  and  a  half, 
four  through  and  three  local  trains  are  due  to  leave, 
and  the  space  within  the  iron  grille  that  fences  off 
the  track  platforms  from  the  public  part  of  the  station 
is  filled  with  hurrying  throngs  of  train-takers. 

Down  at  the  outer  end  of  the  train-shed  the  stutter- 
ing pop-valves  of  the  locomotives,  the  thunderous 
.trundling  of  the  heavy  baggage  trucks,  and  the  shrill, 
monotonous  chant  of  the  express  messengers  checking 
in  their  cargoes,  lift  a  din  harmonious  to  the  seasoned 
traveler ;  a  medley  softened  and  distance-diminished  for 
those  that  crowd  upon  the  gate-keepers  at  the  iron  grille. 

It  was  the  evening  of  the  last  day  in  the  month ;  the 
day  when  the  Federative  Council  of  Eailway  Workers 
had  sent  its  ultimatum  to  Keceiver  Guilford.  The  re- 
duction in  wages  was  to  go  into  effect  at  midnight:  if, 
(342) 


BY  ORDER  OF  THE  COUET     343 

by  midnight,  the  order  had  not  been  rescinded,  and  the 
way  opened  for  a  joint  conference  touching  the  removal 
of  certain  obnoxious  officials,  a  general  strike  and  tie-up 
would  be  ordered.  Trains  in  transit  carrying  passen- 
gers or  United  States  mail  would  be  run  to  their  re- 
spective destinations;  trains  carrying  perishable  freight 
would  be  run  to  division  stations :  with  these  exceptions 
all  labor  would  cease  promptly  on  the  stroke  of  twelve. 

Such  was  the  text  of  the  ultimatum,  a  certified  copy 
of  which  Engineer  Scott  had  delivered  in  person  into 
the  hands  of  the  receiver  at  noon. 

It  was  now  eight  forty-five  P.  M.  The  east-bound 
night  express  was  ready  for  the  run  to  A.  &  T.  Junc- 
tion; the  fast  mail,  one  hour  and  thirty-five  minutes 
late  from  the  east,  was  backing  in  on  track  nine  to  take 
on  the  city  mail.  On  track  eight,  pulled  down  so  that 
the  smoke  from  the  engine  should  not  foul  the  air  of 
the  train-shed,  the  receiver's  private  car,  with  the  1010 
for  motive  power  and  "Red"  Callahan  in  the  cab,  had 
been  waiting  since  seven  o'clock  for  the  order  to  run 
special  to  Gaston.  And  as  yet  the  headquarters  office 
had  made  no  sign;  sent  no  word  of  reply  to  the  strike 
notice. 

Griggs  was  on  for  the  night  run  eastward  with  the 
express ;  and  "Dutch"  Tischer  had  found  himself  slated 
to  take  the  fast  mail  west.  The  change  of  engines  on 
the  mail  had  been  effected  at  the  shops;  and  when 


344  THE    GRAFTEES 

Tischer  backed  his  train  in  on  track  nine  his  berth  was 
beside  the  1010.  Callahan  swung  down  from  his  cab 
and  climbed  quickly  to  that  of  the  mail  engine. 

"Annything  new  at  the  shops,  Dutchy  ?"  he  inquired. 

"I  was  not  somet'ings  gehearing,  nein.  You  was  dot 
Arlcoos  newsbaper  dis  evening  sehen  ?  He  says  nodings 
too,  alretty,  about  dot  strike." 

"Divil  a  worrd.  Ye  might  think  Scotty'd  handed  the 
major  a  bit  av  blank  paper  f'r  all  the  notice  he's  taking. 
More  thin  that,  he's  lavin'  town,  wid  me  to  pull  him. 
The  Naught-seven's  to  run  special  to  Gaston — bad  cess 
tout!" 

"Veil,  I  can'd  hellup  id,"  said  the  phlegmatic  Ba- 
varian. "I  haf  the  mail  and  egspress  got,  and  I  go  mit 
dem  t'rough  to  Pighorn.  You  haf  der  brivate  car  got, 
and  you  go  mit  dem  t'rough  to  Gaston.  Den  ve  qvits, 
ain'd  it?" 

Callahan  nodded  and  dropped  to  the  platform.  But 
before  he  could  mount  to  the  foot-board  of  the  1010, 
M'Tosh  collared  him. 

"Patsy,  I  have  your  orders,  at  last.  Your  passengers 
will  be  down  in  a  few  minutes,  and  you  are  to  pull  out 
ahead  of  the  express." 

"Is  it  to  Gaston  I'm  goin',  Misther  M'Tosh?" 

The  fireman  was  standing  by  with  the  oil  can  and 
torch,  ready  to  Callahan's  hand,  and  the  train-master 
drew  the  engineer  aside. 


BY  ORDER  OF  THE  COURT     345 

"Shovel  needn't  hear,"  he  said  in  explanation.  And 
then:  "Are  you  willing  to  stand  with  us,  Patsy? 
You've  had  time  enough  to  think  it  over." 

Callahan  stood  with  his  arms  folded  and  his  cap 
drawn  down  over  his  eyes. 

"  'Tis  not  f 'r  meself  I'm  thinkin',  Misther  M'Tosh, 
as  ye  well  know.  But  I'm  a  widdy  man ;  an'  there's  the 
bit  colleen  in  the  convint." 

"She'll  be  well  cared  for,  whatever  happens  to  you," 
was  the  quick  reply. 

"Thin  I'm  yer  man,"  said  Callahan;  and  when  the 
train-master  was  gone,  he  ordered  Shovel  to  oil  around 
while  he  did  two  or  three  things  which,  to  an  initiated 
onlooker,  might  have  seemed  fairly  inexplicable.  First 
he  disconnected  the  air-hose  between  the  car  and  the 
engine,  tying  the  ends  up  with  a  stout  cord  so  that  the 
connection  would  not  seem  to  be  broken.  Next  he 
crawled  under  the  Naught-seven  and  deliberately  bled 
the  air-tank,  setting  the  cock  open  a  mere  hairVbreadth 
so  that  it  would  leak  slowly  but  surely  until  the  pressure 
was  entirely  gone. 

Then  he  got  a  hammer  and  sledge  out  of  the  engine 
tool-box,  and  after  hooking  up  the  safety-chain  coup- 
lings between  the  private  car  and  the  1010,  he  crippled 
the  points  of  the  hooks  with  the  hammer  so  that  they 
could  not  be  disengaged  without  the  use  of  force  and 
the  proper  tools. 


346  THE    GRAFTERS 

"There  ye  are,  ye  ould  divil's  band-wagon,"  he  said, 
apostrophizing  the  private  car  when  his  work  was  done. 
"Ye'll  ride  this  night  where  Patsy  Callahan  dhrives, 
an'  be  dommed  to  ye." 

Meanwhile  the  train-master  had  reached  the  iron 
grille  at  the  other  end  of  the  long  track  platform.  At 
a  small  wicket  used  by  the  station  employees  and  train- 
men, 'Kent  was  waiting  for  him. 

"Is  it  aU  right,  M'Tosh?  Will  he  do  it?"  he  asked 
anxiously. 

"Yes,  Patsy's  game  for  it ;  I  knew  he  would  be.  He'd 
put  his  neck  in  a  rope  to  spite  the  major.  But  it's  a 
crazy  thing,  Mr.  Kent." 

"I  know  it;  but  if  it  will  give  me  twenty-four 
hours — " 

"It  won't.  They  can't  get  home  on  our  line  because 
we'll  be  tied  up.  But  they  can  get  the  Naught-seven 
put  on  the  Overland's  Limited  at  A.  &  T.  Junction, 
and  that  will  put  them  back  here  before  you've  had  time 
to  turn  around  twice.  Have  they  come  down  yet  ?" 

"No"  said  Kent;  and  just  then  he  saw  Loring  com- 
ing in  from  the  street  entrance  and  went  to  meet  him. 

"I  have  the  final  word  from  Boston,"  said  the  ex- 
manager,  when  he  had  walked  Kent  out  of  earshot  of 
the  train-takers.  "Your  terms  are  accepted — with  all 
sorts  of  safeguards  thrown  about  the  'no  cure,  no  pay* 
proviso;  also  with  a  distinct  repudiation  of  you  and 


BY  ORDER  OF  THE  COURT     347 

your  scheme  if  there  is  anything  unlawful  afoot.  Do 
you  still  think  it  best  to  keep  me  in  the  dark  as  to  what 
you  are  doing?" 

"Yes;  there  are  enough  of  us  involved,  as  it  stands. 
You  couldn't  help;  and  you  might  hinder.  Besides, 
if  the  mine  should  happen  to  explode  in  our  direction 
it'll  be  a  comfort  to  have  a  foot-loose  friend  or  two  on 
the  outside  to  pick  up  the  pieces  of  us." 

Loring  was  polishing  his  eye-glasses  with  uncommon 
vigor. 

"I  wish  you'd  drop  it,  David,  if  it  isn't  too  late.  I 
can't  help  feeling  as  if  I  had  prodded  you  into  it,  what- 
ever it  is." 

Kent  linked  arms  with  him  and  led  him  back  to  the 
street  entrance. 

"Go  away,  Grantham,  and  don't  come  back  again," 
he  commanded.  "Then  you  can  swear  truthfully  that 
you  didn't  know  anything  about  it.  It  is  too  late  to 
interfere,  and  you  are  not  responsible  for  me.  Go  up 
to  see  Portia ;  she'll  keep  you  interested  while  you  wait." 

When  Loring  was  gone,  Kent  went  back  to  the  wicket 
in  the  grille;  but  M'Tosh,  who  was  always  a  busy  man 
at  train-time,  had  disappeared  again. 

It  was  a  standing  mystery  to  the  train-master,  and  to 
the  rank  and  file,  why  Receiver  Guilford  had  elected  to 
ignore  the  fact  that  he  was  within  three  hours  of  a 
strike  which  promised  to  include  at  least  four-fifths  of 


348  THE   GRAFTERS 

his  operatives;  had  taken  no  steps  for  defense,  and  had 
not  confided,  as  it  appeared,  in  the  members  of  his  own 
official  staff. 

But  Kent  was  at  no  loss  to  account  for  the  official 
silence.  If  the  secret  could  be  kept  for  a  few  hours 
longer,  the  junto  would  unload  the  Trans-Western, 
strike,  tie-up  and  general  demoralization,  upon  an  un- 
suspecting Overland  management. 

None  the  less,  there  were  other  things  unexplainable 
even  to  Kent;  for  one,  this  night  flitting  to  Gaston  to 
put  the  finishing  touch  on  an  edifice  of  fraud  which  had 
been  builded  shamelessly  in  the  light  of  day. 

Kent  had  not  the  key  to  unlock  this  door  of  mystery ; 
but  here  the  master  spirit  of  the  junto  was  doing,  not 
what  he  would,  but  what  he  could.  The  negotiations 
for  the  lease  had  consumed  much  time  at  a  crisis  when 
time  was  precious.  Judge  MacFarlane  had  to  be  re- 
called and  once  more  bullied  into  subjection ;  and  Falk- 
land, acting  for  the  Plantagould  interest,  had  insisted 
upon  some  formal  compliance  with  the  letter  of  the  law. 

Bucks  had  striven  masterfully  to  drive  and  not  be 
driven ;  but  the  delays  were  inexorable,  and  the  impend- 
ing strike  threatened  to  turn  the  orderly  charge  into  a 
rout.  The  governor  had  postponed  the  coup  from  day 
to  day,  waiting  upon  the  leisurely  movements  of  Falk- 
land; and  at  the  end  of  the  ends  there  remained  but 
three  hours  of  the  final  day  of  grace  when  the  telegram 


BY  OEDER  OF  THE  COURT     349 

came  from  Falkland  with  the  welcome  news  that  the 
Overland  officials  were  on  their  way  from  Midland  City 
to  keep  the  appointment  in  Gaston. 

Of  all  this  Kent  knew  nothing,  and  was  anxious  in 
just  proportion  as  the  minutes  elapsed  and  the  time  for 
the  departure  of  the  east-bound  express  drew  near.  For 
the  success  of  the  desperate  venture  turned  upon  this: 
that  the  receiver's  special  must  leave  ahead  of  the  pas- 
senger train.  With  the  express  blocking  the  way  the 
difficulties  became  insurmountable. 

Kent  was  still  standing  at  the  trainmen's  wicket 
when  Callahan  sent  the  private  car  gently  up  to  the 
trackhead  of  track  eight.  M'Tosh  had  been  telephoning 
again,  and  the  receiver  and  his  party  were  on  the  way 
to  the  station. 

"I  was  afraid  you'd  have  to  let  the  express  go  first," 
said  Kent,  when  the  train-master  came  his  way  again. 
"How  much  time  have  we  ?" 

"Five  minutes  more ;  and  they  are  on  the  way  down — 
there  they  come." 

Kent  looked  and  saw  a  group  of  six  men  making  for 
the  nearest  exit  in  the  grille.  Then  he  smote  his  fist 
into  his  palm. 

"Damn!"  he  muttered;  "they've  got  the  vice-presi- 
dent of  the  Overland  with  them !  That's  bad." 

"It's  bad  for  Mr.  Callafield,"  growled  M'Tosh. 
"We're  in  too  deep  now  to  back  down  on  his  account." 


350  THE   GEAFTEES 

Kent  moved  nearer  and  stood  in  the  shadow  of  the 
gate-keeper's  box,  leaving  M'Tosh,  who  was  on  the  track 
platform,  free  to  show  himself.  From  his  new  point  of 
espial  Kent  checked  off  the  members  of  the  party. 
When  Major  Guilford  left  it  to  come  back  for  a  word 
with  M'Tosh,  there  were  five  others:  the  governor,  his 
private  secretary,  Hawk,  Halkett,  the  general  superin- 
tendent, and  the  Overland's  vice-president. 

"All  ready,  M'Tosh?"  said  the  receiver. 

"Beady  and  waiting,  Major,"  was  the  bland  reply. 

"Who  is  our  engineer?" 

"Patrick  Callahan." 

"That  wild  Irishman?  The  governor  says  he'd  as 
soon  ride  behind  the  devil/' 

"Callahan  will  get  you  there/'  said  the  train-master, 
with  deliberate  emphasis.  Then  he  asked  a  question  of 
his  own.  "Is  Mr.  Callafield  going  with  you  ?" 

"No.  He  came  down  to  see  us  off.  How  is  the  fast 
mail  to-night?" 

"She's  just  in — an  hour  and  thirty-five  minutes  late." 

The  major  swore  pathetically.  He  was  of  the  gener- 
ation of  railway  officials,  happily  fast  passing,  which 
cursed  and  swore  itself  into  authority. 

"That's  another  five  hundred  dollars'  forfeit  to  the 
Post-office  Department !  Who's  taking  it  west  ?" 

"Tischer." 

"Give  him  orders  to  cut  out  all  the  stops.    If  he  is 


BY  ORDER  OF  THE  COURT     351 

more  than  fifty-five  minutes  late  at  Bighorn,  he  can 
come  in  and  get  his  time." 

Tischer  had  just  got  the  word  to  go,  and  was  pulling 
out  on  the  yard  main  line. 

"I'll  catch  him  with  the  wire  at  yard  limits,"  said 
M'Tosh.  Then:  "Would  you  mind  hurrying  your 
people  a  little,  Major  ?  The  express  is  due  to  leave." 

Guilford  was  a  heavy  man  for  his  weight,  and  he 
waddled  back  to  the  others,  waving  his  arms  as  a  signal 
for  them  to  board  the  car. 

Kent  saw  the  vice-president  of  the  Overland  Short 
Line  shake  hands  with  Bucks  and  take  his  leave,  and 
was  so  intent  upon  watching  the  tableau  of  departure 
that  he  failed  to  notice  the  small  boy  in  Western  Union 
blue  who  was  trying  to  thrust  a  telegram,  damp  from 
the  copying  rolls,  into  his  hand. 

"It's  a  rush,  sir,"  said  the  boy,  panting  from  his 
quick  dash  across  the  track  platforms. 

It  was  Ormsby's  message  from  Breezeland ;  and  while 
Kent  was  trying  to  grasp  the  tremendous  import  of  it, 
M'Tosh  was  giving  Callahan  the  signal  to  go.  Kent 
sprang  past  the  gate-keeper  and  gave  the  square  of 
damp  paper  to  the  train-master. 

"My  God!  read  that!"  he  gasped,  with  a  dry  sob  of 
excitement.  "It  was  our  chance — one  chance  in  a  mil- 
lion— and  we've  lost  it !" 

M'Tosh  was  a  man  for  a  crisis.    The  red  tail-lights  of 


352  THE    GRAFTERS 

the  private-car  special  were  yet  within  a  sprinter's  dash 
of  the  trackhead,  but  the  train-master  lost  no  time 
chasing  a  ten-wheel  flyer  with  "Red"  Callahan  at  the 
throttle. 

"Up  to  my  office !"  he  shouted ;  and  ten  seconds  later 
Kent  was  leaning  breathless  over  the  desk  in  the  des- 
patcher's  room  while  M'Tosh  called  Durgan  over  the 
yard  limits  telephone. 

"Is  that  you,  Durgan?"  he  asked,  when  the  reply 
came.  Then :  "Drop  the  board  on  the  mail,  quick !  and 
send  somebody  to  tell  Tischer  to  side-track,  leaving  the 
main  line  Western  Division  clear.  Got  that  ?" 

The  answer  was  evidently  prompt  and  satisfactory, 
since  he  began  again  almost  in  the  same  breath. 

"Now  go  out  yourself  and  flag  Callahan  before  he 
reaches  the  limits.  Tell  him  the  time-card's  changed 
and  he  is  to  run  west  with  the  special  to  Megilp  as  first 
section  of  the  mail — no  stops,  or  Tischer  will  run  him 
down.  Leg  it !  He's  half-way  down  the  yard,  now !" 

The  train-master  dropped  the  ear-piece  of  the  tele- 
phone and  crossed  quickly  to  the  despatcher's  table. 

"Orders  for  the  Western  Division,  Donohue,"  he  said 
curtly,  "and  don't  let  the  grass  grow.  'Receiver's  car, 
Callahan,  engineer,  runs  to  Megilp  as  first  section  of 
fast  mail.  Fast  mail,  Hunt,  conductor;  Tischer,  engi- 
neer; runs  to  the  end  of  the  division  without  stop,  mak- 


BY   OBDEE   OF   THE   COTJET  353 

ing  up  all  time  possible/  Add  to  that  last,  'By  order  of 
the  receiver/  " 

The  orders  were  sent  as  swiftly  as  the  despatcher 
could  rattle  them  off  on  his  key;  and  then  followed  an 
interval  of  waiting  more  terrible  than  a  battle.  Kent 
tried  to  speak,  but  his  lips  were  parched  and  his  tongue 
was  like  a  dry  stick  between  his  teeth.  What  was  doing 
in  the  lower  yard?  Would  Durgan  fail  at  the  pinch 
and  mismanage  it  so  as  to  give  the  alarm?  The  min- 
utes dragged  leaden-winged,  and  even  the  sounders  on 
the  despatched  table  were  silent. 

Suddenly  the  clicking  began  again.  The  operator  at 
"yard  limits"  was  sending  the  0.  K.  to  the  two  train 
orders.  So  far,  so  good.  Now  if  Callahan  could  get 
safely  out  on  the  Western  Division.  .  . 

But  there  was  a  hitch  in  the  lower  yard.  Durgan  had 
obeyed  his  orders  promptly  and  precisely,  and  had  suc- 
ceeded in  stopping  Callahan  at  the  street-crossing 
where  Engineer  Dixon  had  killed  the  farmer.  Durgan 
climbed  to  the  cab  of  the  1010,  and  the  changed  plan 
was  explained  in  a  dozen  words.  But  now  came  the 
crux. 

"If  I  stand  here  till  you'd  be  bringin'  me  my  orders, 
I'll  have  the  whole  kit  av  thim  buzzin'  round  to  know 
f what's  the  matther,"  said  Callahan;  but  there  was  no 
other  thing  to  do,  and  Durgan  hurried  back  to  the  tele- 
graph office  to  play  the  messenger. 


354  THE    GEAFTEES 

He  was  too  long  about  it.  Before  he  got  back, 
Halkett  was  tinder  the  cab  window  of  the  1010,  demand- 
ing to  know — with  many  objurgations — why  Callahan 
had  stopped  in  the  middle  of  the  yards. 

"Get  a  move  on  you!"  he  shouted.  "The  express  is 
right  behind  us,  and  it'll  run  us  down,  you  damned 
bog-trotter !" 

Callahan's  gauntleted  hand  shot  up  to  the  throttle- 
bar. 

"I'm  Favin',  Misther  Halkett/'  he  said  mildly.  "Will 
yez  go  back  to  the  car,  or  ride  wit'  me?" 

The  general  superintendent  took  no  chance  of  catch- 
ing the  Naught-seven's  hand-rails  in  the  darkness,  and 
he  whipped  up  into  the  cab  at  the  first  sharp  cough  of 
the  exhaust. 

"I'll  go  back  when  you  stop  for  your  orders,"  he  said; 
but  a  shadowy  figure  had  leaped  upon  the  engine-step  a 
scant  half -second  behind  him,  and  Callahan  was  stuff- 
ing the  crumpled  copy  of  the  order  into  the  sweat-band 
of  his  cap.  The  next  instant  the  big  1010  leaped  for- 
ward like  a  blooded  horse  under  an  unmerited  cut  of  the 
whip,  slid  past  the  yard  limits  telegraph  office  and  shot 
out  upon  the  main  line  of  the  Western  Division. 

"Sit  down,  Misther  Halkett,  an'  make  yerself  aisy!" 
yelled  Callahan  across  the  cab.  "  'Tis  small  use  Jimmy 
Shovel  '11  have  for  his  box  this  night." 


BY  OEDER  OF  THE  COURT     355 

"Shut  off,  you  Irish  madman !"  was  the  shouted  com- 
mand. "Don't  you  see  you're  on  the  wrong  division?" 

Callahan  gave  the  throttle-bar  another  outward  hitch, 
tipped  his  seat  and  took  a  hammer  from  the  tool-box. 

"I  know  where  I'm  goin',  an'  that's  more  thin  you 
know,  ye  blandhanderin*  divil!  Up  on  that  box  wit* 
you,  an'  kape  out  av  Jimmy  Shovel's  road,  or  I'll  be  the 
death  av  yez !  Climb,  now !" 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  the  tense  strain  of  sus- 
pense was  broken  in  the  despatched  room  on  the  sec- 
ond floor  of  the  Union  Station.  The  telephone  skirled 
joyously,  and  the  train-master  snatched  up  the  ear-piece. 

"What  does  he  say  ?"  asked  Kent. 

"It's  all  right.  He  says  Callahan  is  out  on  the  West- 
ern Division,  with  Tischer  chasing  him  according  to 
programme.  Halkett's  in  the  cab  of  the  1010  with 
Patsy,  and — hold  on —  By  George !  he  says  one  of  them 
jumped  the  car  as  it  was  passing  the  limits  station !" 

"Which  one  was  it?"  asked  Kent;  and  he  had  to  wait 
till  the  reply  came  from  Durgan. 

"It  was  Hawk,  the  right-of-way  man.  He  broke  and 
ran  for  the  nearest  electric-car  line  the  minute  he  hit 
the  ground,  Durgan  says.  Does  he  count?" 

"No,"  said  Kent;  but  it  is  always  a  mistake  to  under- 
rate an  enemy's  caliber — even  that  of  his  small  arms. 


XXVIII 

THE  NIGHT  OF  ALARMS 

If  Editor  Hildreth  had  said  nothing  in  his  evening 
edition  about  the  impending  strike  on  the  Trans- West- 
ern, it  was  not  because  public  interest  was  waning. 
For  a  fortnight  the  newspapers  in  the  territory  tribu- 
tary to  the  road  had  been  full  of  strike  talk,  and 
Hildreth  had  said  his  say,  deprecating  the  threatened 
appeal  to  force  as  fearlessly  as  he  condemned  the  mis- 
management which  was  provoking  it. 

But  it  was  Kent  who  was  responsible  for  the  dearth 
of  news  on  the  eve  of  the  event.  Early  in  the  morning 
of  the  last  day  of  the  month  he  had  sought  out  the  editor 
and  begged  him  to  close  the  columns  of  the  Evening 
Argus  to  strike  news,  no  matter  what  should  come  in 
during  the  course  of  the  day. 

"I  can't  go  into  the  reasons  as  deeply  now  as  I  hope 

to  a  little  later,"  he  had  said,  his  secretive  habit  holding. 

good  to  the  final  fathom  of  the  slipping  hawser  of 

events.    "But  you  must  bear  with  me  once  more,  and 

(356) 


THE    NIGHT   OF   ALAKMS  357 

whatever  you  hear  between  now  and  the  time  you  go  to 
press,  don't  comment  on  it.  I  have  one  more  chance  to 
win  out,  and  it  hangs  in  a  balance  that  a  feather's 
weight  might  tip  the  wrong  way.  I'll  be  with  you  be- 
tween ten  and  twelve  to-night,  and  you  can  safely  save 
two  columns  of  the  morning  paper  for  the  sensation  I'm 
going  to  give  you." 

It  was  in  fulfilment  of  this  promise  that  Kent  be- 
stirred himself  after  he  had  sent  a  wire  to  Ormsby,  and 
M'Tosh  had  settled  down  to  the  task  of  smoothing  Cal- 
lahan's  way  westward  over  a  division  already  twitching 
in  the  preliminary  rigor  of  the  strike  convulsion. 

"I  am  going  to  set  the  fuse  for  the  newspaper  explo- 
sion/* he  said  to  his  ally.  "Barring  accidents,  there  is 
no  reason  why  we  shouldn't  begin  to  figure  definitely 
upon  the  result,  is  there  ?" 

M'Tosh  was  leaning  over  Despatcher  Donohue's 
shoulder.  He  had  slipped  Donohue's  fingers  aside  from 
the  key  to  cut  in  with  a  peremptory  "G.  S."  order  sus- 
pending, in  favor  of  the  fast  mail,  the  rule  which  re- 
quires a  station  operator  to  drop  his  board  on  a  follow- 
ing section  that  is  less  than  ten  minutes  behind  its  file- 
leader. 

"The  fun  is  beginning,"  said  the  train-master. 
"Tischer  has  his  tip  from  Durgan  to  keep  Callahan's 
tail-lights  in  sight.  With  the  mail  treading  on  their 
heels  the  gentlemen  in  the  Naught-seven  will  be  chary 


358  THE   GKAFTEKS 

about  pulling  Patsy  down  too  suddenly  in  mid  career. 
They  have  just  passed  Morning  Dew,  and  the  operator 
reports  Tischer  for  disregarding  his  slow  signal." 

"Can't  you  fix  that?"  asked  Kent. 

"Oh,  yes;  that  is  one  of  the  things  I  can  fix.  But 
there  are  going  to  be  plenty  of  others." 

"Still  we  must  take  something  for  granted,  Mr. 
M'Tosh.  What  I  have  to  do  up-town  won't  wait  until 
Callahan  has  finished  his  run.  I  thought  the  main  diffi- 
culty was  safely  overcome." 

"Umph!"  said  the  train-master;  "the  troubles  are 
barely  getting  themselves  born.  You  must  remember 
that  we  swapped  horses  at  the  last  minute.  We  were 
ready  for  the  race  to  the  east.  Everybody  on  the  Prairie 
Division  had  been  notified  that  a  special  was  to  go 
through  to-night  without  stop  from  Lesterville  to  A.  & 
T.  Junction." 

"Well?" 

"Now  we  have  it  all  to  straighten  out  by  wire  on  an- 
other division;  meeting  points  to  make,  slow  trains  to 
side-track,  fool  operators  to  hold  down ;  all  on  the  dizzy 
edge  of  a  strike  that  is  making  every  man  on  the  line 
lose  his  balance.  But  you  go  ahead  with  your  news- 
paper business.  I'll  do  what  a  man  can  here.  And  if 
you  come  across  that  right-of-way  agent,  I  wish  you'd 
make  it  a  case  of  assault  and  battery  and  get  him 
locked  up.  I'm  leery  about  him." 


THE   NIGHT   OF   ALAEMS  359 

Kent  went  his  way  dubiously  reflective.  In  the  mo- 
ment of  triumph,  when  Durgan  had  announced  the  suc- 
cess of  the  bold  change  in  the  programme,  he  had  made 
light  of  Hawk's  escape.  But  now  he  saw  possibilities. 
True,  the  junto  was  leaderless  for  the  moment,  and 
Bucks  had  no  very  able  lieutenants.  But  Hawk  would 
give  the  alarm;  and  there  was  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
machine  to  reckon  with.  And  for  weapons,  the  ring 
controlled  the  police  power  of  the  State  and  of  the  city. 
Let  the  word  be  passed  that  the  employees  of  the  Trans- 
Western  were  kidnapping  their  receiver  and  the  gov- 
ernor, and  many  things  might  happen  before  "Red." 
Callahan  should  finish  his  long  race  to  the  westward. 

Thinking  of  these  things,  David  Kent  walked  up- 
town when  he  might  have  taken  a  car.  When  the  toxin 
of  panic  is  in  the  air  there  is  no  antidote  like  vigorous 
action. 

Passing  the  Western  Union  central  office,  he  stopped 
to  send  Ormsby  a  second  telegram,  reporting  progress 
and  asking  him  to  be  present  in  person  at  the  de"noue- 
inent  to  put  the  facts  on  the  wire  at  the  earliest  possible 
instant  of  time.  "Everything  depends  upon  this/'  he 
added,  when  he  had  made  the  message  otherwise  em- 
phatic. "If  we  mies  the  morning  papers,  we  are  done." 

While  he  was  pocketing  his  change  at  the  receiving 
clerk's  pigeon-hole,  a  cab  rattled  up  with  a  horse  at  a 
gallop,  and  Stephen  Hawk  sprang  out.  Kent  saw  him 


360  THE   GKAPTEKS 

through  the  plate-glass  front  and  turned  quickly  to  the 
public  writing-desk,  hoping  to  be  overlooked.  He  was. 
For  once  in  a  way  the  ex-district  attorney  was  too  nearly 
rattled  to  be  fully  alert  to  his  surroundings.  There 
were  others  at  the  standing  desk;  and  Hawk  wrote  his 
message,  after  two  or  three  false  starts,  almost  at  Kent's 
elbow. 

Kent  heard  the  chink  of  coin  and  the  low-spoken 
urgings  for  haste  at  the  receiving  clerk's  window;  but 
he  forbore  to  move  until  the  cab  had  rattled  away. 
Then  he  gathered  up  the  spoiled  blanks  left  behind  by 
Hawk  and  smoothed  them  out.  Two  of  them  bore 
nothing  but  the  date  line,  made  illegible,  it  would  seem, 
by  the  writer's  haste  and  nervousness.  But  at  the  third 
attempt  Hawk  had  got  as  far  as  the  address :  "To  All 
Trans-Western  agents  on  Western  Division." 

Kent  stepped  quickly  to  the  receiver's  window.  The 
only  expedient  he  could  think  of  was  open  to  reproach, 
but  it  was  no  time  to  be  over-scrupulous. 

"Pardon  me,"  he  began,  "but  didn't  the  gentleman 
who  was  just  here  forget  to  sign  his  message  ?" 

The  little  hook  caught  its  minnow.  The  receiving 
clerk  was  folding  Hawk's  message  to  place  it  in  the 
leather  carrier  of  the  pneumatic  tube,  but  he  opened 
and  examined  it. 

"No,"  he  said;  "ifs  signed  all  right:  'J.  B.  Halkett, 
G.  S.'" 


THE    NIGHT    OF   ALARMS  361 

"Ah !"  said  Kent.  'That's  a  little  odd.  Mr.  Halkett 
is  out  of  town,  and  this  gentleman,  Mr.  Hawk,  is  not  in 
his  department.  I  believe  I  should  investigate  a  little 
before  sending  that,  if  I  were  you." 

Having  thus  sown  the  small  seed  of  suspicion,  which, 
by  the  by,  fell  on  barren  soil,  Kent  lost  no  time  in 
calling  up  M'Tosh  over  the  nearest  telephone. 

"Do  our  agents  on  the  Western  Division  handle  West- 
ern Union  business  ?"  he  asked. 

The  reply  came  promptly. 

"Yes;  locally.  The  W-U.  has  an  independent  line 
to  Breezeland  Inn  and  points  beyond." 

"Well,  our  right-of-way  man  has  just  sent  a  telegram 
to  all  agents,  signing  Halkett's  name.  I  don't  know 
what  he  said  in  it,  but  you  can  figure  that  out  for  your- 
self." 

"You  bet  I  can !"  was  the  emphatic  rejoinder.  And 
then :  "Where  are  you  now  ?" 

"I'm  at  the  Clarendon  public  'phone,  but  I  am  going 
over  to  the  Argus  office.  I'll  let  you  know  when  I  leave 
there.  Good-by." 

When  Kent  reached  the  night  editor's  den  on  the 
third  floor  of  the  Argus  building  he  found  Hildreth 
immersed  chin-deep  in  a  sea  of  work.  But  he  quickly 
extricated  himself  and  cleared  a  chair  for  his  visitor. 

"Praise  be !"  he  ejaculated.  "I  was  beginning  to  get 
anxious.  Large  things  are  happening,  and  you  didn't 


362  THE    GEAFTEES 

turn  up.  I've  had  Manville  wiring  all  over  town  for 
you." 

"What  are  some  of  the  large  things?"  asked  Kent, 
lighting  his  first  cigar  since  dinner. 

"Well,  for  one :  do  you  know  that  your  people  are  on 
the  verge  of  the  much-talked-of  strike?" 

"Yes;  I  knew  it  this  morning.  That  was  what  I 
wanted  you  to  suppress  in  the  evening  edition." 

"I  suppressed  it  all  right;  I  didn't  know  it — day  and 
date,  I  mean.  They  kept  it  beautifully  quiet.  But  that 
isn't  all.  Something  is  happening  at  the  capitol.  I  was 
over  at  the  club  a  little  while  ago,  and  Hendricks  was 
there.  Somebody  sent  in  a  note,  and  he  positively  ran 
to  get  out.  When  I  came  back,  I  sent  Eogers  over  to 
Cassatti's  to  see  if  he  could  find  you.  There  was  a  junto 
dinner  confab  on ;  Meigs,  Senator  Crowley,  three  or  four 
of  the  ring  aldermen  and  half  a  dozen  wa-ward  politi- 
cians. Eogers  has  a  nose  for  news,  and  when  he  had 
'phoned  me  you  weren't  there,  he  hung  around  on  the 
edges." 

"Good  men  you  have,  Hildreth.  What  did  the  unim- 
peachable Eogers  see?" 

"He  saw  on  a  large  scale  just  what  I  had  seen  on  a 
small  one :  somebody  pup-passed  a  note  in,  and  when  it 
had  gone  the  round  of  the  dinner-table  those  fellows 
tumbled  over  each  other  trying  to  get  away." 

"!B  that  all?"  Kent  inquired. 


THE    NIGHT    OF   ALAEMS  363 

"No.  Apart  from  his  nose,  Kogers  is  gifted  with 
horse  sense.  When  the  dinner  crowd  boarded  an  up- 
town car,  our  man  paid  fare  to  the  same  conductor. 
He  wired  me  from  the  Hotel  Brunswick  a  few  minutes 
ago.  There  is  some  sort  of  a  caucus  going  on  in  Hen- 
dricks'  office  in  the  capitol,  and  mum-messengers  are 
flying  in  all  directions." 

"And  you  wanted  me  to  come  and  tell  you  all  the 
whys  and  wherefores  ?"  Kent  suggested. 

"I  told  the  chief  Fd  bet  a  bub-blind  horse  to  a  broken- 
down  mule  you  could  do  it  if  anybody  could." 

"All  right;  listen:  something  worse  than  an  hour  ago 
the  governor,  his  private  secretary,  Guilford,  Hawk  and 
Halkett  started  out  on  a  special  train  to  go  to  Gaston." 

"What  for?"  interrupted  the  editor. 

"To  meet  Judge  MacFarlane,  Mr.  Semple  Falkland, 
and  the  Overland  officials.  You  can  guess  what  was  to 
be  done?" 

"Sure.  Your  railroad  was  to  be  sold  out,  lock,  stock 
and  barrel;  or  leased  to  the  Overland  for  ninety-nine 
years — which  amounts  to  the  same  thing." 

"Precisely.  Well,  by  some  unaccountable  mishap  the 
receiver's  special  was  switched  over  to  the  Western  Divi- 
sion at  yard  limits,  and  the  engineer  seems  to  think  he 
has  orders  to  proceed  westward.  At  all  events,  that  is 
what  he  is  doing.  And  the  funny  part  of  it  is  that  he 
can't  stop  to  find  out  his  blunder.  The  fast  mail  ia 


364  THE    GEAFTEES 

right  behind  him,  with  the  receiver's  order  to  smash 
anything  that  gets  in  its  way ;  so  you  see — " 

"That  will  do,"  said  the  night  editor.  "We  don't 
print  fairy  stories  in  the  Argus." 

"None  the  less,  you  are  going  to  print  this  one  to- 
morrow morning,  just  as  I'm  telling  it  to  you,"  Kent 
asserted  confidently.  "And  when  you  get  the  epilogue 
you  will  say  that  it  makes  my  little  preface  wearisome 
by  contrast." 

The  light  was  slowly  dawning  in  the  editorial  mind. 

"My  heaven !"  he  exclaimed.  "Kent,  you're  good  for 
twenty  years,  at  the  very  lul-least !" 

"Am  I?  It  occurs  to  me  that  the  prosecuting  attor- 
ney in  the  case  will  have  a  hard  time  proving  anything. 
Doesn't  it  look  that  way  to  you?  At  the  worst,  it  is 
only  an  unhappy  misunderstanding  of  orders.  And  if 
the  end  should  happen  to  justify  the  means — " 

Hildreth  shook  his  head  gravely. 

"You  don't  understand,  David.  If  you  could  be  sure 
of  a  fair-minded  judge  and  an  unbiased  jury — you  and 
those  who  are  implicated  with  you:  but  you'll  get 
neither  in  this  machine-ridden  State." 

"We  are  going  to  have  both,  after  you  have  filled 
your  two  columns — by  the  way,  you  are  still  saving 
those  two  columns  for  me,  aren't  you? — in  to-morrow 
morning's  Argus.  Or  rather,  I'm  hoping  there  will  be 
no  need  for  either  judge  or  jury." 


365 

The  night  editor  shook  his  head  again,  and  once  more 
he  said,  "My  heaven !"  adding :  "What  could  you  pos- 
sibly hope  to  accomplish?  You'll  get  the  receiver  and 
his  big  boss  out  of  the  State  for  a  few  minutes,  or  pos- 
sibly for  a  few  hours,  if  your  strike  makes  them  hunt 
up  another  railroad  to  return  on.  But  what  will  it 
amount  to?  Getting  rid  of  the  receiver  doesn't  annul 
the  decree  of  the  court." 

Kent  fell  back  on  his  secretive  habit  yet  once  again. 

"I  don't  care  to  anticipate  the  climax,  Hildreth.  By 
one  o'clock  one  of  two  things  will  have  happened: 
you'll  get  a  wire  that  will  make  your  back  hair  sit  up, 
or  I'll  get  one  that  will  make  me  wish  I'd  never  been 
born.  Let  it  rest  at  that  for  the  present ;  you  have  work 
enough  on  hand  to  fill  up  the  interval,  and  if  you 
haven't,  you  can  distribute  those  affidavits  I  gave  you 
among  the  compositors  and  get  them  into  type.  I  want 
to  see  them  in  the  paper  to-morrow  morning,  along  with 
the  other  news." 

"Oh,  we  can't  do  that,  David !  The  time  isn't  ripe. 
You  know  what  I  told  you  about — " 

"If  the  time  doesn't  ripen  to-night,  Hildreth,  it  never 
will.  Do  as  I  tell  you,  and  get  that  stuff  into  type.  Do 
more;  write  the  hottest  editorial  you  can  think  of,  de- 
manding to  know  if  it  isn't  time  for  the  people  to  rise 
and  clean  out  this  stable  once  for  all." 

"By  Jove!  David,  I've  half  a  mum-mind  to  do  it. 


366  THE    GKAFTEKS 

If  you'd  only  unbutton  yourself  a  little,  and  let  me  see 
what  my  backing  is  going  to  be — " 

"All  in  good  season/'  laughed  Kent.  "Tour  business 
for  the  present  moment  is  to  write;  I'm  going  down  to 
the  Union  Station." 

"What  for?"  demanded  the  editor. 

"To  see  if  our  crazy  engineer  is  still  mistaking  his 
orders  properly." 

"Hold  on  a  minute.  How  did  the  enemy  get  wind  of 
your  plot  so  quickly  ?  You  can  tell  me  that,  can't  you  ?" 

"Oh,  yes;  I  told  you  Hawk  was  one  of  the  party  in 
the  private  car.  He  fell  off  at  the  yard  limits  station 
and  came  back  to. town." 

The  night  editor  stood  up  and  confronted  his  visitor. 

"David,  you  are  either  the  coolest  plunger  that  ever 
drew  breath — or  the  bub-biggest  fool.  I  wouldn't  be 
standing  in  your  shoes  to-night  for  two  such  railroads 
as  the  T-W." 

Kent  laughed  again  and  opened  the  door. 

"I  suppose  not.  But  you  know  there  is  no  accounting 
for  the  difference  in  tastes.  I  feel  as  if  I  had  never 
really  lived  before  this  night;  the  only  thing  that 
troubles  me  is  the  fear  that  somebody  or  something  will 
get  in  the  way  of  my  demented  engineer." 

He  went  out  into  the  hall,  but  as  Hildreth  was  closing 
the  door  he  turned  back. 

"There  is  one  other  thing  that  I  meant  to  say :  when 


THE    NIGHT    OF    ALARMS  367 

you  get  your  two  columns  of  sensation,  you've  got  to  be 
decent  and  share  with  the  Associated  Press." 

"I'm  dud-dashed  if  I  do !"  said  Hildreth,  fiercely. 

"Oh,  yes,  you  will;  just  the  bare  facts,  you  know. 
You'll  have  all  the  exciting  details  for  an  'exclusive/  to 
say  nothing  of  the  batch  of  affidavits  in  the  oil  scandal. 
And  it  is  of  the  last  importance  to  me  that  the  facts 
shall  be  known  to-morrow  morning  wherever  the  Asso- 
ciated has  a  wire." 

"Go  away!"  said  the  editor,  "and  dud-don't  come 
back  here  till  you  can  uncork  yourself  like  a  man  and  a 
Cue-Christian !  Go  off,  I  say !" 

It  wanted  but  a  few  minutes  of  eleven  when  Kent 
mounted  the  stair  to  the  despatcher's  room  in  the  Union 
Station.  He  found  M'Tosh  sitting  at  Donohue's  elbow, 
and  the  sounders  on  the  glass-topped  table  were  crack- 
ling like  overladen  wires  in  an  electric  storm. 

"Strike  talk,"  said  the  train-master.  "Every  man 
on  both  divisions  wants  to  know  what's  doing.  Got  your 
newspaper  string  tied  up  all  right?" 

Kent  made  a  sign  of  assent. 

"We  are  waiting  for  Mr.  Patrick  Callahan.  Any 
news  from  him  ?" 

"Plenty  of  it.  Patsy  would  have  a  story  to  tell,  all 
right,  if  he  could  stop  to  put  it  on  the  wires.  Durgan 
ought  to  have  caught  that  blamed  right-of-way  man 
and  chloroformed  him." 


368  THE   GKAFTERS 

"I  found  him  messing,  as  I  'phoned  you.  Anything 
come  of  it?" 

"Nothing  fatal,  I  guess,  since  Patsy  is  still  humping 
along.  But  Hawk's  next  biff  was  more  to  the  purpose. 
He  came  down  here  with  Halkett's  chief  clerk,  whom 
he  had  hauled  out  of  bed,  and  two  policemen.  The  plan 
was  to  fire  Donohue  and  me,  and  put  Bicknell  in  charge. 
It  might  have  worked  if  Bicknell'd  had  the  sand.  But 
he  weakened  at  the  last  minute ;  admitted  that  he  wasn't 
big  enough  to  handle  the  despatcher's  trick.  The  way 
Hawk  cursed  him  out  was  a  caution  to  sinners." 

"When  was  this?"  Kent  asked. 

"Just  a  few  minutes  ago.  Hawk  went  off  ripping; 
swore  he  would  find  somebody  who  wasn't  afraid  to  take 
the  wires.  And,  between  us  three,  I'm  scared  stiff  for 
fear  he  will." 

"Can  it  be  done?" 

"Dead  easy,  if  he  knows  how  to  go  about  it — and 
Bicknell  will  tell  him.  The  Overland  people  don't  love 
us  any  too  well,  and  if  they  did,  the  lease  deal  would 
make  them  side  with  Guilford  and  the  governor.  If 
Hawk  asks  them  to  lend  him  a  train  despatcher  for  a 
few  minutes,  they'll  do  it." 

"But  the  union  ?"  Kent  objected. 

"They  have  three  or  four  non-union  men." 

"Still,  Hawk  has  no  right  to  discharge  you." 


THE   NIGHT   OF   ALARMS  369 

"Bicknell  has.  He  is  Halkett's  representative, 
and—" 

The  door  opened  suddenly  and  Hawk  danced  in,  fol- 
lowed by  a  man  bareheaded  and  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  the 
superintendent's  chief  clerk,  and  the  two  officers. 

"Now,  then,  we'll  trouble  you  and  your  man  to  get 
out  of  here,  Mr.  M'Tosh,"  said  the  captain  of  the  junto 
forces,  vindictively. 

But  the  train-master  was  of  those  who  die  hard.  He 
protested  vigorously,  addressing  himself  to  Bicknell 
and  ignoring  the  ex-district  attorney  as  if  he  were  not. 
He,  McTosh,  was  willing  to  surrender  the  office  on  an 
official  order  in  writing  over  the  chief  clerk's  signature. 
But  did  Bicknell  fully  understand  what  it  might  mean 
in  loss  of  life  and  property  to  put  a  new  man  on  the 
wires  at  a  moment's  notice? 

Bicknell  would  have  weakened  again,  but  Hawk  was 
not  to  be  frustrated  a  second  time. 

"Don't  you  see  he  is  only  sparring  to  gain  time  ?"  he 
snapped  at  Bicknell.  Then  to  M'Tosh:  "Get  out  of 
here,  and  do  it  quick !  And  you  can  go,  too,"  wheeling 
suddenly  upon  Kent. 

Donohue  had  taken  no  part  in  the  conflict  of  author- 
ity. But  now  he  threw  down  his  pen  and  clicked  his 
key  to  cut  in  with  the  "G.  S.,"  which  claims  the  wire 
instantly.  Then  distinctly,  and  a  word  at  a  time  so  that 
the  slowest  operator  on  the  line  could  get  it,  he  spelled 


370  THE    GEAFTEES 

out  the  message :  "All  Agents :  Stop  and  hold  all  trains 
except  first  and  second  fast  mail,  west-bound.  M'Tosh 
fired,  and  office  in  hands  of  police — " 

"Stop  him!"  cried  the  shirt-sleeved  man.  "He's 
giving  it  away  on  the  wire  I" 

But  Donohue  had  signed  his  name  and  was  putting 
on  his  coat. 

"You're  welcome  to  what  you  can  find,"  he  said, 
scowling  at  the  interloper.  "If  you  kill  anybody  now, 
it'll  be  your  own  fault." 

"Arrest  that  man !"  said  Hawk  to  his  policemen ;  but 
Kent  interposed. 

"If  you  do,  the  force  will  be  two  men  shy  to-morrow. 
The  Civic  League  isn't  dead  yet."  And  he  took  down 
the  numbers  of  the  two  officers. 

There  were  no  arrests  made,  and  when  the  ousted 
three  were  clear  of  the  room  and  the  building,  Kent 
asked  an  anxious  question. 

"How  near  can  they  come  to  smashing  us,  M'Tosh  ?" 

"That  depends  on  Callahan's  nerve.  The  night  oper- 
ators at  Donerail,  Schofield  and  Agua  Caliente  are 
all  Guilf  ord  appointees,  and  when  the  new  man  explains 
the  situation  to  them,  they'll  do  what  they  are  told  to 
do.  But  I'm  thinking  Patsy  won't  pull  up  for  anything 
milder  than  a  spiked  switch." 

"Well,  they  might  throw  a  switch  on  him.  I  wonder 
somebody  hasn't  done  it  before  this." 


THE   NIGHT   OF   ALARMS  371 

The  train-master  shook  his  head. 

"If  Tischer  is  keeping  close  up  behind,  that  would 
jeopardize  more  lives  than  Callahan's.  But  there  is 
another  thing  that  doesn't  depend  on  nerve — Patsy's  or 
anybody's." 

"What  is  that?" 

"Water.  The  run  is  one  hundred  and  eighty  miles. 
The  1010's  tank  is  good  for  one  hundred  with  a  train, 
or  a  possible  hundred  and  sixty,  light.  There  is  about 
one  chance  in  a  thousand  that  Callahan's  crown-sheet 
won't  get  red-hot  and  crumple  up  on  him  in  the  last 
twenty  miles.  Let's  take  a  car  and  go  down  to  yard, 
limits.  We  can  sit  in  the  office  and  hear  what  goes 
over  the  wires,  even  if  we  can't  get  a  finger  in  to  help 
Patsy  out  of  his  troubles." 

They  boarded  a  Twentieth  Avenue  car  accordingly, 
but  when  they  reached  the  end  of  the  line,  which  was' 
just  across  the  tracks  from  the  junction  in  the  lower 
yards,  they  found  the  yard  limits  office  and  the  shops 
surrounded  by  a  cordon  of  militia. 

"By  George !"  said  M'Tosh.  "They  got  quick  action, 
didn't  they  ?  I  suppose  it's  on  the  ground  of  the  strike 
and  possible  violence." 

Kent  spun  on  his  heel,  heading  for  the  electric  car 
they  had  just  left. 

"Back  to  town,"  he  said;  "unless  you  two  want  to 
jump  the  midnight  Overland  as  it  goes  out  and  get 
away  while  you  can.  If  Callahan  fails — " 


XXIX 

THE  RELENTLESS  WHEELS 

But  Engineer  Callahan  had  no  notion  of  failing. 
When  he  had  drawn  the  hammer  on  his  superior  officer, 
advising  discretion  and  a  seat  on  Jimmy  Shovel's  box, 
the  1010  was  racking  out  over  the  switches  in  the  West- 
ern Division  yards.  Three  minutes  later  the  electric 
beam  of  Tischer's  following  headlight  sought  and  found 
the  first  section  on  the  long  tangent  leading  up  to  the 
high  plains,  and  the  race  was  in  full  swing. 

At  Morning  Dew,  the  first  night  telegraph  station  out 
of  the  capital,  the  two  sections  were  no  more  than  a 
scant  quarter  of  a  mile  apart ;  and  the  operator  tried  to 
flag  the  second  section  down,  as  reported.  This  did  not 
happen  again  until  several  stations  had  been  passed, 
and  Callahan  set  his  jaw  and  gave  the  1010  more  throt- 
tle. But  at  Lossing,  a  town  of  some  size,  the  board  was 
down  and  a  man  ran  out  at  the  crossing,  swinging  a  red 
light. 

Callahan  looked  well  to  the  switches,  with  the  steam 
shut  off  and  his  hand  dropping  instinctively  to  the  air ; 
(372) 


THE   KELENTLESS   WHEELS  373 

and  the  superintendent  shrank  into  his  corner  and 
gripped  the  window  ledge  when  the  special  roared  past 
the  warning  signals  and  on  through  the  town  beyond. 
He  had  maintained  a  dazed  silence  since  the  episode  of 
the  flourished  hammer,  but  now  he  was  moved  to  yell 
across  the  cab. 

"I  suppose  you  know  what  you're  in  for,  if  you  live  to 
get  out  of  this !  It's  twenty  years,  in  this  State,  to  pass 
a  danger  signal!"  This  is  not  all  that  the  superin- 
tendent said:  there  were  forewords  and  interjections, 
emphatic  but  unprintable. 

Callahan's  reply  was  another  flourish  of  the  hammer, 
and  a  sudden  outpulling  of  the  throttle-bar;  and  the 
superintendent  subsided  again. 

But  enforced  silence  and  the  grindstone  of  conscious 
helplessness  will  sharpen  the  dullest  wit.  The  swerving 
lurch  of  the  1010  around  the  next  curve  set  Halkett 
clutching  for  hand-holds,  and  the  injector  lever  fell 
within  his  grasp.  What  he  did  not  know  about  the 
working  parts  of  a  modern  locomotive  was  very  con- 
siderable; but  he  did  know  that  an  injector,  half  opened, 
will  waste  water  as  fast  as  an  inch  pipe  will  discharge 
it.  And  without  water  the  Irishman  would  have  to  stop. 

Callahan  heard  the  chuckling  of  the  wasting  boiler 
feed  before  he  had  gone  a  mile  beyond  the  curve.  It  was 
a  discovery  to  excuse  bad  language,  but  his  protest  was 
lamb-like. 


374  THE    GRAFTERS 

"No  more  av  that,  if  ye  plaze,  Misther  Halkett,  or 
me  an'  Jimmy  Shovel'll  have  to — Ah !  would  yez,  now  ?" 

Before  his  promotion  to  the  superintendency  Halkett 
had  been  a  ward  boss  in  the  metropolis  of  the  State. 
Thinking  he  saw  his  chance,  he  took  it,  and  the  blow 
knocked  Callahan  silly  for  the  moment.  Afterward 
there  was  a  small  free-for-all  buffeting  match  in  the 
narrow  cab  in  which  the  fireman  took  a  hand,  and  dur- 
ing which  the  racing  1010  was  suffered  to  find  her  way 
alone.  When  it  was  over,  Callahan  spat  out  a  broken 
tooth  and  gave  his  orders  concisely. 

"Up  wid  him  over  the  coal,  an'  we'll  put  him  back  in 
the  car  where  he  belongs.  Now,  thin !" 

Halkett  had  to  go,  and  he  went,  not  altogether  un- 
willingly. And  when  it  came  to  jumping  across  from 
the  rear  of  the  tender  to  the  forward  vestibule  of  the 
Naught-seven,  or  being  chucked  across,  he  jumped. 

Now  it  so  chanced  that  the  governor  and  his  first  lieu- 
tenant in  the  great  railway  steal  had  weighty  matters  to 
discuss,  and  they  had  not  missed  the  superintendent  or 
the  lawyer,  supposing  them  to  be  still  out  on  the  rear 
platform  enjoying  the  scenery.  Wherefore  Halkett's 
sudden  appearance,  mauled,  begrimed  and  breathless 
from  his  late  tussle  with  the  two  enginemen,  was  the 
first  intimation  of  wrong-going  that  had  penetrated  to 
the  inner  sanctum  of  the  private  car. 


THE   KELENTLESS   WHEELS  375 

"What's  that  you  say,  Mr.  Halkett  ? — on  the  Western 
Division?  Whereabouts?"  demanded  the  governor. 

"Between  Lossing  and  Skipjack  siding — if  we  haven't 
passed  the  siding  in  the  last  two  or  three  minutes.  I've 
been  too  busy  to  notice,"  was  the  reply. 

"And  you  say  you  were  on  the  engine?  Why  the 
devil  didn't  you  call  your  man  down  ?" 

"I  knocked  him  down,"  gritted  the  superintendent, 
savagely,  "and  I'd  have  beat  his  face  in  for  him  if  there 
hadn't  been  two  of  them.  It's  a  plot  of  some  kind,  and 
Callahan  knows  what  he  is  about.  He  had  me  held  up 
with  a  hammer  till  just  a  few  minutes  ago,  and  he's 
running  past  stop-signals  and  over  red  lights  like  a 
madman !" 

Bucks  and  Guilford  exchanged  convictions  by  the 
road  of  the  eye,  and  the  governor  said : 

"This  is  pretty  serious,  Major.  Have  you  anything 
to  suggest  ?"  And  without  waiting  for  a  reply  he  turned 
upon  Halkett :  "Where  is  Mr.  Hawk  ?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  supposed  he  was  in  here  with  you. 
Or  maybe  he's  out  on  the  rear  platform." 

The  three  of  them  went  to  the  rear,  passing  the  pri- 
vate secretary  comfortably  asleep  in  his  wicker  chair. 
When  they  stepped  out  upon  the  recessed  observation 
platform  they  found  it  empty. 

"He  must  have  suspected  something  and  dropped  off 


376  THE    GEAFTEES 

in  the  yard  or  at  the  shops,"  said  Halkett.  And  at  the 
saying  of  it  he  shrank  back  involuntarily  and  added: 
"Ah !  Look  at  that,  will  you?" 

The  car  had  just  thundered  past  another  station,  and 
Callahan  had  underrun  one  more  stop-signal  at  full 
speed.  At  the  same  instant  Tischer's  headlight  swung 
into  view,  half  blinding  them  with  its  glare. 

"What  is  that  following  us  ?"  asked  Bucks. 

"It's  the  fast  mail,"  said  Halkett. 

Guilford  turned  livid  and  caught  at  the  hand-rail. 

"S-s-say — are  you  sure  of  that  ?"  he  gasped. 

"Of  course:  it  was  an  hour  and  thirty-five  minutes 
late,  and  we  are  on  its  time." 

"Then  we  can't  stop  unless  somebody  throws  us  on  a 
siding!"  quavered  the  receiver,  who  had  a  small  spirit 
in  a  large  body.  "I  told  M'Tosh  to  give  the  mail  orders 
to  make  up  her  lost  time  or  I'd  fire  the  engineer — told 
him  to  cut  out  all  the  stops  this  side  of  Agua  Cali- 
ente!" 

"That's  what  you  get  for  your  infernal  meddling!" 
snapped  Halkett.  In  catastrophic  moments  many  bar- 
riers go  down;  deference  to  superior  officers  among  the 
earliest. 

But  the  master  spirit  of  the  junto  was  still  cool  and 
collected. 

"This  is  no  time  to  quarrel,"  he  said.  "The  thing  to 


THE   KELENTLESS   WHEELS  377 

be  done  is  to  stop  this  train  without  getting  ourselves 
ripped  open  by  that  fellow  behind  the  headlight  yon* 
der.  The  stop-signals  prove  that  Hawk  and  the  others 
are  doing  their  best,  but  we  must  do  ours.  What  do  you 
say,  Halkett?" 

"There  is  only  one  thing,"  replied  the  superintend- 
ent; "we've  got  to  make  the  Irishman  run  ahead  fast 
enough  and  far  enough  to  give  us  room  to  stop  or  take 
a  siding." 

The  governor  planned  it  in  a  few  curt  sentences. 
Was  there  a  weapon  to  be  had?  Danforth,  the  private 
secretary,  roused  from  his  nap  in  the  wicker  chair,  was 
able  to  produce  a  serviceable  revolver.  Two  minutes 
later,  the  sleep  still  tingling  in  his  nerves  to  augment 
another  tingling  less  pleasurable,  the  secretary  had 
spanned  the  terrible  gap  separating  the  car  from  the 
engine  and  was  making  his  way  over  the  coal,  flutter- 
ing his  handkerchief  in  token  of  his  peaceful  intentions. 

He  was  charged  with  a  message  to  Callahan,  manda- 
tory in  its  first  form,  and  bribe-promising  in  its  sec- 
ond; and  he  was  covered  from  the  forward  vestibule  of 
the  private  car  by  the  revolver  in  the  hands  of  a  reso- 
lute and  determined  state  executive. 

"One  of  them's  comin'  ahead  over  the  coal,"  warned 
James  Shovel ;  and  Callahan  found  his  hammer. 

"Kun  ahead  an'  take  a  siding,  is  ut  ?"  he  shouted,  glar- 


378  THE    GRAFTERS 

ing  down  on  the  messenger.  "I  have  me  ordhers  fVm 
betther  men  than  thim  that  sint  you.  Go  back  an'  tell 
thim  so." 

"You'll  be  paid  if  you  do,  and  you'll  be  shot  if  you 
don't/'  yelled  the  secretary,  persuasively. 

"Tell  the  boss  he  can't  shoot  two  av  us  to  wanst ;  an' 
the  wan  that's  left  '11  slap  on  the  air,"  was  Callahan's 
answer;  and  he  slacked  off  a  little  to  bring  the  follow- 
ing train  within  easy  striking  distance. 

Danforth  went  painfully  and  carefully  back  with 
this  defiance,  and  while  he  was  bridging  the  nerve-try- 
ing gap,  another  station  with  the  stop-board  down  and 
red  lights  frantically  swinging  was  passed  with  a  roar 
and  a  whistle  shriek. 

"Fwhat  are  they  doing  now  ?"  called  Callahan  to  his 
fireman. 

"They've  gone  inside  again/'  was  the  reply. 

"Go  back  an'  thry  the  tank,"  was  the  command ;  and 
Jimmy  Shovel  climbed  over  the  coal  and  let  himself 
down  feet  foremost  into  the  manhole.  When  he  slid 
back  to  the  footplate  his  legs  were  wet  to  the  mid  shin. 

"It's  only  up  to  there,"  he  reported,  measuring  with 
his  hand. 

Callahan  looked  at  his  watch.  There  was  yet  a  full 
hour's  run  ahead  of  him,  and  there  was  no  more  than  a 
scant  foot  of  water  in  the  tank  with  which  to  make  it 

Thereafter  he  forgot  the  Naught-seven,  and  whatever 


THE   RELENTLESS   WHEELS  379 

menace  it  held  for  him,  and  was  concerned  chiefly  with 
the  thing  mechanical.  Would  the  water  last  him 
through  ?  He  had  once  made  one  hundred  and  seventy 
miles  on  a  special  run  with  the  1010  without  refilling 
his  tank;  but  that  was  with  the  light  engine  alone. 
Now  he  had  the  private  car  behind  him,  and  it  seemed 
at  times  to  pull  with  all  the  drag  of  a  heavy  train. 

But  one  expedient  remained,  and  that  carried  with  it 
the  risk  of  his  life.  An  engine,  not  overburdened,  uses 
less  water  proportionately  to  miles  run  as  the  speed  is 
increased.  He  could  outpace  the  safe-guarding  mail, 
save  water — and  take  the  chance  of  being  shot  in  the 
back  from  the  forward  vestibule  of  the  Naught-seven 
when  'he  had  gained  lead  enough  to  make  a  main-line 
stop  safe  for  the  men  behind  him. 

Callahan  thought  once  of  the  child  mothered  by  the 
Sisters  of  Loretto  in  the  convent  at  the  capital,  shut  his 
eyes  to  that  and  to  all  things  extraneous,  and  sent  the 
1010  about  her  business.  At  the  first  reversed  curve  he 
hung  out  of  his  window  for  a  backward  look.  Tischer's 
headlight  had  disappeared  and  his  protection  was  gone. 

On  the  rear  platform  of  the  private  car  four  men 
watched  the  threatening  second  section  fade  into  the 
night. 

"Our  man  has  thought  better  of  it,"  said  the  gov- 
ernor, marking  the  increased  speed  and  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  menacing  headlight. 


380  THE    GEAFTEES 

Guilford's  sigh  of  relief  was  almost  a  groan. 

"My  God !"  he  said ;  "it  makes  me  cold  to  think  what 
might  happen  if  he  should  pull  us  over  into  the  other 
State!" 

But  Halkett  was  still  smarting  from  the  indignities 
put  upon  him,  and  his  comment  was  a  vindictive  threat. 

"I'll  send  that  damned  Irishman  over  the  road  for 
this,  if  it  is  the  last  thing  I  ever  do !"  he  declared ;  and 
he  confirmed  it  with  an  oath. 

But  Callahan  was  getting  his  punishment  as  he  went 
along.  He  had  scarcely  settled  the  1010  into  her  gait 
for  the  final  run  against  the  failing  water  supply  when 
another  station  came  in  sight.  It  was  a  small  cattle 
town,  and  in  addition  to  the  swinging  red  lights  and  a 
huge  bonfire  to  illuminate  the  yards,  the  obstruction- 
ists had  torn  down  the  loading  corral  and  were  piling 
the  lumber  on  the  track. 

Once  again  Callahan's  nerve  flickered,  and  he  shut 
off  the  steam.  But  before  it  was  too  late  he  reflected 
that  the  barrier  was  meant  only  to  scare  him  into  stop- 
ping. One  minute  later  the  air  was  full  of  flying  splint- 
ers, and  that  danger  was  passed.  But  one  of  the  broken 
planks  came  through  the  cab  window,  missing  the  en- 
gineer by  no  more  than  a  hand's-breadth.  And  the 
shower  of  splinters,  sucked  in  by  the  whirl  of  the  train, 
broke  glass  in  the  private  car  and  sprinkled  the  quar- 
tet on  the  platform  with  split  kindling  and  wreckage. 


THE   RELENTLESS   WHEELS          381 

"What  was  that  ?"  gasped  the  receiver. 

Halkett  pointed  to  the  bonfire,  receding  like  a  fad- 
ing star  in  the  rearward  distance. 

"Our  friends  are  beginning  to  throw  stones,  since 
clods  won't  stop  him."  he  said. 

Bucks  shook  his  head. 

"If  that  is  the  case,  we'll  have  to  be  doing  something 
on  our  own  account.  The  next  obstruction  may  derail 
us." 

Halkett  stepped  into  the  car  and  pulled  the  cord  of 
the  automatic  air. 

"No  good,"  he  muttered.  "The  Irishman  bled  our 
tank  before  he  started.  Help  me  set  the  hand  brakes, 
a  couple  of  you." 

Danforth  and  the  governor  took  hold  of  the  brake 
wheel  with  him,  and  for  a  minute  or  two  the  terrible 
speed  slackened  a  little.  Then  some  part  of  the  dis- 
used hand-gear  gave  way  under  the  three-man  strain 
and  that  hope  was  gone. 

"There's  one  thing  left,"  said  the  superintendent, 
indomitable  to  the  last.  "We'll  uncouple  and  let  him 
drop  us  behind." 

The  space  in  the  forward  vestibule  was  narrow  and 
cramped,  and  with  the  strain  of  the  dragging  car  to 
make  the  pin  stick,  it  took  two  of  them  lying  flat,  wait- 
ing for  the  back-surging  moment  and  wiggling  it  for 
slack,  to  pull  it.  The  coupling  dropped  out  of  the  hook 


382  THE   GEAFTEES 

and  the  engine  shot  ahead  to  the  length  of  the  safety- 
chains  ;  thus  far,  but  no  farther. 

Halkett  stood  up. 

"It's  up  to  you,  Danf orth,"  he  said,  raising  his  voice 
to  be  heard  above  the  pounding  roar  of  the  wheels. 
"You're  the  youngest  and  lightest:  get  down  on  the 
1010's  brake-beam  and  unhook  those  chains." 

The  secretary  looked  once  into  the  trap  with  the 
dodging  jaws  and  the  backward-flying  bottom  and  de- 
clined the  honor. 

"I  can't  get  down  there,"  he  cried.  "And  I  shouldn't 
know  what  to  do  if  I  could." 

Once  more  the  superintendent  exhibited  his  nerve. 
He  had  nothing  at  stake  save  a  desire  to  defeat  Calla- 
han;  but  he  had  the  persistent  courage  of  the  bull- 
terrier.  With  Bucks  and  the  secretary  to  steady  him 
he  lowered  himself  in  the  gap  till  he  could  stand  upon 
the  brake-beam  of  the  1010's  tender  and  grope  with 
one  free  hand  for  the  hook  of  the  nearest  safety-chain. 
Death  nipped  at  him  every  time  the  engine  gave  or 
took  up  the  slack  of  the  loose  coupling,  but  he  dodged 
and  hung  on  until  he  had  satisfied  himself. 

"It's  no  good,"  he  announced,  when  they  had  dragged 
-him  by  main  strength  back  to  a  footing  in  the  nar- 
row vestibule.  "The  hooks  are  bent  into  the  links. 
We're  due  to  go  wherever  that  damned  Irishman  is 
taking  us." 


THE   RELENTLESS   WHEELS  383 

Shovel  was  firing,  and  the  trailing  smoke  and  cin- 
ders quickly  made  the  forward  vestibule  untenable. 
When  they  were  driven  in,  Bucks  and  the  receiver  went 
through  to  the  rear  platform,  where  they  were  pres- 
ently joined  by  Halkett  and  Danforth. 

"I've  been  trying  the  air  again,"  said  the  superin- 
tendent, "but  it's  no  go.  What's  next?" 

The  governor  gave  the  word. 

<rWait,"  he  said;  and  the  four  of  them  clung  to  the 
hand-rails,  swaying  and  bending  to  the  bounding 
lurches  of  the  flying  car. 

Mile  after  mile  reels  from  beneath  the  relentless 
wheels,  and  still  the  speed  increases.  Station  Done- 
rail  is  passed,  and  now  the  pace  is  so  furious  that  the 
watchers  on  the  railed  platform  can  not  make  out 
the  signals  in  the  volleying  wake  of  dust.  Station 
Schofield  is  passed,  and  again  the  signals,  if  any  there 
be,  are  swiftly  drowned  in  the  gray  dust-smother.  From 
Schofield  to  Agua  Caliente  is  but  a  scant  ten  miles; 
and  as  the  flying  train  rushes  on  toward  the  State 
boundary,  two  faces  in  the  quartet  of  watchers  show 
tense  and  drawn  under  the  yellow  light  of  the  Pintsch 
platform  lamp. 

The  governor  swings  himself  unsteadily  to  the  right- 
hand  railing  and  the  long  look  ahead  brings  the  twink- 
ling arc-star  of  the  tower  light  on  Breezeland  Inn 


384  THE   GEAFTEES 

into  view.  He  turns  to  Guilford,  who  has  fallen  limp 
into  one  of  the  platform  chairs. 

"In  five  minutes  more  we  shall  pass  Agua  Caliente," 
he  says.  "Will  you  kill  the  Irishman,  or  shall  I?" 
Guilford's  lips  move,  but  there  is  no  audible  reply; 
and  Bucks  takes  Danforth's  weapon  and  passes  quickly 
and  alone  to  the  forward  vestibule. 

The  station  of  Agua  Caliente  swings  into  the  field 
of  1010's  electric  headlight.  Callahan's  tank  has  been 
bone  dry  for  twenty  minutes,  and  he  is  watching  the 
glass  water-gage  where  the  water  shows  now  only 
when  the  engine  lurches  heavily  to  the  left.  He  knows 
that  the  crown-sheet  of  the  fire-box  is  bare,  and  that 
any  moment  it  may  give  down  and  the  end  will  come. 
Yet  his  gauntleted  hand  never  falls  from  the  throttle- 
bar  to  the  air-cock,  and  his  eyes  never  leave  the  bubble 
appearing  and  disappearing  at  longer  intervals  in  the 
heel  of  the  water-glass. 

Shovel  has  stopped  firing,  and  is  hanging  out  of 
his  window  for  the  straining  look  ahead.  Suddenly 
he  drops  to  the  footplate  to  grip  Callahan's  arm. 

"See!"  he  says.  "They  have  set  the  switch  to  throw 
us  in  on  the  siding !"  In  one  motion  the  flutter  of  the 
exhaust  ceases,  and  the  huge  ten-wheeler  buckles  to 
the  sudden  setting  of  the  brakes.  The  man  standing 
in  the  forward  vestibule  of  the  Naught-seven  lowers 


THE    RELENTLESS   WHEELS  385 

his  weapon.  Apparently  it  is  not  going  to  be  neces- 
sary to  kill  the  engineer,  after  all. 

But  Callahan's  nerve  has  failed  him  only  for  the  mo- 
ment. There  is  one  chance  in  ten  thousand  that  the 
circumambulating  side  track  is  empty;  one  and  one 
only,  and  no  way  to  make  sure  of  it.  Beyond  the  station, 
as  Callahan  well  knows,  the  siding  comes  again  into 
the  main  line,  and  the  switch  is  a  straight-rail  "safety." 
Once  again  the  thought  of  his  motherless  child  flickers 
into  the  engineer's  brain;  then  he  releases  the  air  and 
throws  his  weight  backward  upon  the  throttle-bar.  Two 
gasps  and  a  heart-beat  decide  it;  and  before  the  man 
in  the  vestibule  can  level  his  weapon  and  fire,  the  one- 
car  train  has  shot  around  the  station,  heaving  and 
lurching  over  the  uneven  rails  of  the  siding,  and  grind- 
ing shrilly  over  the  points  of  the  safety  switch  to  race 
on  the  down  grade  to  Megilp. 

At  the  mining-camp  the  station  is  in  darkness  save 
for  the  goggle  eyes  of  an  automobile  drawn  up  beside 
the  platform,  and  deep  silence  reigns  but  for  the  muffled, 
irregular  thud  of  the  auto-car's  motor.  But  the  beam  of 
the  1010's  headlight  shows  the  small  station  building 
massed  by  men,  a  score  of  them  poising  for  a  spring  to 
the  platforms  of  the  private  car  when  the  slackening 
speed  shall  permit.  A  bullet  tears  into  the  woodwork  at 
Callahan's  elbow,  and  another  breaks  the  glass  of  the 


386  THE   GEAFTEES 

window  beside  him,  but  he  makes  the  stop  as  steadily  as 
if  death  were  not  snapping  at  him  from  behind  and 
roaring  in  his  ears  from  the  belly  of  the  burned  engine. 

"Be  doomping  yer  fire  lively,  now,  Jimmy,  b'y,"  he 
says,  dropping  from  his  box  to  help.  And  while  they 
wrestle  with  the  dumping-bar,  these  two,  the  poising 
figures  have  swarmed  upon  the  Naught-seven,  and  a 
voice  is  lifted  above  the  Babel  of  others  in  sharp  protest. 

"Put  away  that  rope,  boys !  There's  law  here,  and  by 
God,  we're  going  to  maintain  it!" 

At  this  a  man  pushes  his  way  out  of  the  thick  of  the 
crowd  and  climbs  to  a  seat  beside  the  chauffeur  in  the 
waiting  automobile. 

"They've  got  him,"  he  says  shortly.  "To  the  hotel 
for  all  you're  worth,  Hudgins;  our  part  is  to  get  this 
on  the  wires  before  one  o'clock.  Full  speed;  and  never 
mind  the  ruts." 


XXX 

SUBHI   SADIE 

The  dawn  of  a  new  day  was  graying  over  the  capi- 
tal city,  and  the  newsboys  were  crying  lustily  in  the 
streets,  when  David  Kent  felt  his  way  up  the  dark 
staircases  of  the  Kittleton  Building  to  knock  at  the 
door  of  Judge  Oliver  Marston's  rooms  on  the  top  floor. 
He  was  the  bearer  of  tidings,  and  he  made  no  more  than 
a  formal  excuse  for  the  unseemly  hour  when  the  door 
was  opened  by  the  lieutenant-governor. 

"I  am  sorry  to  disturb  you,  Judge  Marston,"  he  be- 
gan, when  he  had  the  closed  door  at  his  back  and  was 
facing  the  tall  thin  figure  in  flannel  dressing  gown 
and  slippers,  "but  I  imagine  I'm  only  a  few  minutes 
ahead  of  the  crowd.  Have  you  heard  the  news  of  the 
night?" 

The  judge  pressed  the  button  of  the  drop-light  and 
waved  his  visitor  to  a  chair. 

"I  have  heard  nothing,  Mr.  Kent.  Have  a  cigar  ?" — 
passing  the  box  of  unutterable  stogies. 
(387) 


388  THE   GRAFTERS 

"Thank  you;  not  before  breakfast/'  was  the  hasty 
reply.  Then,  without  another  word  of  preface :  "Judge 
Marston,  for  the  time  being  you  are  the  governor  of 
the  State,  and  I  have  come  to — " 

"One  moment,"  interrupted  his  listener.  "There  are 
some  stories  that  read  better  for  a  foreword,  however 
brief.  What  has  happened?" 

"This:  last  night  it  was  the  purpose  of  Governor 
Bucks  and  Receiver  Guilford  to  go  to  Gaston  by  special 
train.  In  some  manner,  which  has  not  yet  been  fully 
explained,  there  was  a  confusion  of  orders.  Instead  of 
proceeding  eastward,  the  special  was  switched  to  the 
tracks  of  the  Western  Division;  was  made  the  first  sec- 
tion of  the  fast  mail,  which  had  orders  to  run  through 
without  stop.  You  can  imagine  the  result." 

Marston  got  upon  his  feet  slowly  and  began  pacing 
the  length  of  the  long  room.  Kent  waited,  and  the 
shrill  cries  of  the  newsboys  floated  up  and  in  through 
the  open  windows.  When  the  judge  finally  came  back 
to  his  chair  the  saturnine  face  was  gray  and  haggard. 

"I  hope  it  was  an  accident  that  can  be  clearly 
proved,"  he  said;  and  a  moment  later:  "You  spoke  of 
Bucks  and  Guilford;  were  there  others  in  the  private 
car?" 

"Two  others;  Haikett,  and  the  governor's  private 
secretary." 


STJBHI   SADIK  389 

"And  were  they  all  killed  ?" 

A  great  light  broke  in  upon  Kent  when  he  saw  how 
Marston  had  misapprehended.  Also,  he  saw  how  much 
it  would  simplify  matters  if  he  should  be. happy  enough 
to  catch  the  ball  in  the  reactionary  rebound. 

"They  are  all  alive  and  uninjured,  to  the  best  of  my 
knowledge  and  belief ;  though  I  understand  that  one  of 
them  narrowly  escaped  lynching  at  the  hands  of  an  ex- 
cited mob." 

The  long  lean  figure  erected  itself  in  the  chair,  and 
the  weight  of  years  seemed  to  slip  from  its  shoulders. 

"But  I  understood  you  to  say  that  the  duties  of  the 
executive  had  devolved  upon  me,  Mr.  Kent.  You  also 
said  I  could  imagine  the  result  of  this  singular  mis- 
taking of  train-orders,  and  I  fancied  I  could.  What 
was  the  result?" 

"A  conclusion  not  quite  as  sanguinary  as  that  you 
had  in  mind,  though  it  is  likely  to  prove  serious  enough 
for  one  member  of  the  party  in  the  private  car.  The 
special  train  was  chased  all  the  way  across  the  State  by 
the  fast  mail.  It  finally  outran  the  pursuing  section  and 
was  stopped  at  Megilp.  A  sheriff's  posse  was  in  wait- 
ing, and  an  arrest  was  made." 

"Go  on,"  said  the  lieutenant-governor. 

"I  must  first  go  back  a  little.  Some  weeks  ago  there 
was  a  shooting  affray  in  the  mining-camp,  arising  out 
of  a  dispute  over  a  'salted'  mine,  and  a  man  was  killed. 


390  THE    GRAFTERS 

The  murderer  escaped  across  the  State  line.  Since  the 
authorities  of  the  State  in  which  the  crime  was  com- 
mitted had  every  reason  to  believe  that  a  governor's 
requisition  for  this  particular  criminal  would  not  be 
honored,  two  courses  were  open  to  them:  to  publish 
the  facts  and  let  the  moral  sentiment  of  the  neighbor- 
ing commonwealth  punish  the  criminal  as  it  could,  or 
would;  or,  suppressing  the  facts,  to  bide  their  chance 
of  catching  their  man  beyond  the  boundaries  of  the 
State  which  gave  him  an  asylum.  They  chose  the 
latter." 

A  second  time  Marston  left  his  chair  and  began  to 
pace  the  floor.  After  a  little  he  paused  to  say: 

"This  murderer  is  James  Guilford,  I  take  it;  and 
the  governor — " 

"No"  said  Kent,  gravely.  "The  murderer  is — Jas- 
per G.  Bucks."  He  handed  the  judge  a  copy  of  the 
Argus.  "You  will  find  it  all  in  the  press  despatches; 
all  I  have  told  you,  and  a  great  deal  more." 

The  lieutenant-governor  read  the  newspaper  story  as 
he  walked,  lighting  the  electric  chandelier  to  enable 
him  to  do  so.  When  it  was  finished  he  sat  down  again. 

"What  a  hideous  cesspool  it  is !"  was  his  comment. 
"But  we  shall  clean  it,  Mr.  Kent ;  we  shall  clean  it  if  it 
shall  leave  the  People's  Party  without  a  vote  in  the 
State.  Now  what  can  I  do  for  you  ?  You  didn't  come 


STJBHI    SADIE  391 

here  at  this  hour  in  the  morning  merely  to  bring  me  the 
news." 

"No,  I  didn't,  Judge  Marston.    I  want  my  railroad." 

"You  shall  have  it,"  was  the  prompt  response.  "What 
have  you  done  since  our  last  discussion  of  the  subject  ?" 

"I  tried  to  'obliterate'  Judge  MacFarlane,  as  you 
suggested.  But  I  failed  in  the  first  step.  Bucks  and 
Meigs  refused  to  approve  the  quo  warranio." 

The  judge  knitted  his  brows  thoughtfully. 

"That  way  is  open  to  you  now;  but  it  is  long  and 
devious,  and  delays  are  always  dangerous.  You  spoke 
of  the  receivership  as  being  part  of  a  plan  by  which 
your  road  was  to  be  turned  over  to  an  eastern  monopoly. 
How  nearly  has  that  plan  succeeded?" 

Kent  hesitated,  not  because  he  was  afraid  to  trust 
the  man  Oliver  Marston,  but  because  there  were  some 
things  which  the  governor  of  the  State  might  feel 
called  upon  to  investigate  if  the  knowledge  of  them 
were  thrust  upon  him.  But  in  the  end  he  took  counsel 
of  utter  frankness. 

"So  nearly  that  if  Bucks  and  the  receiver  had  reached 
Gaston  last  night,  our  road  would  now  be  in  the  hands 
of  the  Plantagoulds  under  a  ninety-nine-year  lease." 

The  merest  ghost  of  a  smile  flitted  over  the  lieuten- 
ant-governor's face  when  he  said,  with  his  nearest  ap- 
proach to  sarcasm: 


392  THE    GRAFTERS 

"How  extremely  opportune  the  confusion  of  train- 
orders  becomes  as  we  go  along!  But  answer  one  more 
question  if  you  please — it  will  not  involve  these  singu- 
larly heedless  railway  employees  of  yours :  is  Judge  Mac- 
Farlane  in  Gaston  now?" 

"He  is.  He  was  to  have  met  the  others  on  the  ar- 
rival of  the  special  train." 

There  were  footsteps  on  the  stair  and  in  the  corri- 
dor, and  Marston  rose. 

"Our  privacy  is  about  to  be  invaded,  Mr.  Kent.  This 
is  a  miserable  business;  miserable  for  everybody,  but 
most  of  all  for  the  deceived  and  hoodwinked  people  of 
an  unhappy  State.  God  knows,  I  did  not  seek  this 
office;  but  since  it  has  fallen  on  me,  I  shall  do  my 
duty  as  I  see  it,  and  my  hand  shall  be  heaviest  upon 
that  man  who  makes  a  mockery  of  the  justice  he  is 
sworn  to  administer.  Come  to  the  capitol  a  little  later 
in  the  day,  prepared  to  go  at  once  to  Gaston.  I  think 
I  can  promise  you  your  hearing  on  the  merits  without 
further  delay." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Kent,  simply,  grasping  the  hand 
of  leave-taking.  Then  he  tried  to  find  other  and  larger 
words.  "I  wish  I  could  do  something  to  show  my  ap- 
preciation of  your — " 

But  the  lieutenant-governor  was  pushing  him  to- 
ward the  door. 

"You  have  done  something,  Mr.  Kent,  and  you  can 


STJBHI    SADIK  393 

do  more.  Head  those  people  off  at  the  door  and  say 
that  for  the  present  I  refuse  positively  to  be  seen  or 
interviewed.  They  will  find  me  at  the  capitol  during 
office  hours." 

It  was  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  the  fiercest 
working  day  Kent  had  ever  fought  through  when  the 
special  train — his  own  private  special,  sent  to  Gaston 
and  brought  back  again  over  the  strike-paralyzed  road 
by  the  express  permission  and  command  of  the  strikers 
themselves — set  him  down  in  the  Union  Station  at  the 
capital. 

Looking  back  to  the  gray  of  the  morning  when  he  had 
shaken  hands  with  Governor  Marston  at  the  door  of 
the  room  on  the  top  floor  of  the  Kittleton  Building,  the 
crowding  events  made  the  interval  seem  more  like  a 
week ;  and  now  the  events  themselves  were  beginning  to 
take  on  dream-like  incongruities  in  the  haze  of  utter 
weariness. 

"Evening  'Argus!  all  about  the  p'liminary  trial  of 
Governor  Bucks.  Argus,  sir  ?"  piped  a  small  boy  at  the 
station  exit ;  but  Kent  shook  his  head,  found  a  cab  and 
had  himself  conveyed  quickly  through  streets  still  rife 
with  excitement  to  the  Clarendon  Hotel. 

In  the  lobby  was  the  same  bee-buzzing  crowd  with 
which  he  had  been  contending  all  day,  and  he  edged 
his  way  through  it  to  the  elevator,  praying  that  he 
might  go  unrecognized — as  he  did.  Once  safe  in  his 


394  THE   GEAFTEES 

rooms  he  sent  for  Loring,  stretching  himself  on  the 
bed  in  a  very  ecstasy  of  relaxation  until  the  ex-manager 
came  up.  Then  he  emptied  his  mind  as  an  overladen 
ass  spills  its  panniers. 

"I'm  done,  Grantham,"  he  said;  "and  that  is  more 
different  kinds  of  truth  than  you  have  heard  in  a  week. 
Go  and  reorganize  your  management,  and  M'Tosh  is 
the  man  to  put  in  Halkett's  place.  The  strike  will  be 
declared  off  at  the  mere  mention  of  your  name  and  his. 
That's  all.  Now  go  away  and  let  me  sleep." 

"Oh,  hold  on!"  was  the  good-natured  protest;  "I'm 
not  more  curious  than  I  have  to  be,  but  I'd  like  to  know 
how  it  was  done." 

"I  don't  know,  myself;  and  that's  the  plain  fact. 
But  I  suspect  Marston  fell  upon  Judge  McFarlane: 
gave  him  a  wire  hint  of  what  was  due  to  arrive  if  he 
didn't  give  us  a  clean  bill  of  health.  I  had  my  pre- 
liminary interview  with  the  governor  at  daybreak  this 
morning;  and  I  was  with  him  again  between  nine  and 
ten.  He  went  over  the  original  papers  with  me,  and 
about  all  he  said  was,  'Be  in  Gaston  by  two  o'clock  this 
afternoon,  and  MacFarlane  will  give  you  the  hearing 
in  chambers/  I  went  on  my  knees  to  the  Federative 
Council  to  get  a  train." 

"You  shouldn't  have  had  any  trouble  there." 

"I  didn't  have,  after  the  men  understood  what  was 
in  the  wind.  Jarl  Oleson  took  me  down  and  brought 


STJBHI   SADIE  395 

me  back.  The  council  did  it  handsomely,  dipping  into 
its  treasury  and  paying  the  mileage  on  a  Pullman  car." 

"And  MacFarlane  reversed  his  own  order?" 

"Without  a  question.  It  was  the  merest  formality. 
Jennison,  Hawk's  former  law  partner,  stood  for  the 
other  side ;  hut  he  made  no  argument." 

"Good !"  said  Loring.  "That  will  do  for  the  day's 
work.  But  now  I'd  like  to  know  how  last  night's  job 
was  managed." 

"I'm  afraid  you  want  to  know  more  than  is  good 
for  you.  What  do  the  papers  say?  I  haven't  looked 
at  one  all  day." 

"They  say  there  was  a  misunderstanding  of  orders. 
That  will  answer  for  the  public,  perhaps,  but  it  won't 
do  for  me." 

"I  guess  it  will  have  to  do  for  you,  too,  Grantham," 
said  Kent,  yawning  shamelessly.  "Five  men,  besides 
myself — six  of  us  in  all — know  the  true  inwardness  of 
last  night's  round-up.  There  will  never  be  a  seventh." 

Loring's  eye-glasses  fell  from  his  nose,  and  he  was 
smiling  shrewdly  when  he  replaced  them. 

"There  is  one  small  consequence  that  doesn't  please 
you,  I'm  sure.  You'll  have  to  bury  the  hatchet  with 
MacFarlane." 

"Shall  I?"  flashed  Kent,  sitting  up  as  if  he  had 
been  struck  with  a  whip.  "Let  me  tell  you:  Marston 
is  going  to  call  an  extra  session  of  the  Assembly.  There 


396  THE    GRAFTERS 

is  a  death  vacancy  in  this  district,  and  I  shall  be  a  can- 
didate in  the  special  election.  If  there  is  no  other  way 
to  get  at  MacFarlane,  he  shall  be  impeached!" 

"H'm:  so  you're  going  into  politics?" 

"You've  said  it,"  said  Kent,  subsiding  among  the 
pillows.  "Now  will  you  go?" 

It  took  the  general  manager  a  wakeful  twenty-four 
hours  to  untangle  the  industrial  snarl  which  was  the 
receiver's  legacy  to  his  successor ;  and  David  Kent  slept 
through  the  major  part  of  that  interval,  rising  only  in 
time  to  dress  for  dinner  on  the  day  following  the  re- 
trieval of  the  Trans- Western. 

In  the  grill-room  of  the  Camelot  he  came  face  to  face 
with  Ormsby,  and  learned,  something  to  his  astonish- 
ment, that  the  Breezeland  party  had  returned  to  the 
capital  on  the  first  train  in  from  the  west. 

"I  thought  you  were  going  to  stay  a  month  or  more," 
he  said,  with  his  eyes  cast  down. 

"So  did  I,"  said  Ormsby.  "But  Mrs.  Brentwood 
cut  it  short.  She's  a  town  person,  and  so  is  Penelope." 
And  it  was  not  until  the  soup  plates  had  been  removed 
that  he  added  a  question.  "Are  you  going  out  to  see 
them  this  evening,  David?  You  have  my  royal  per- 
mission." 

«No»— bluntly. 

"Isn't  it  up  to  you  to  go  and  give  them  a  chance  to 


STJBHI   SADIK  397 

jolly  you  a  little?  I  think  they  are  all  aching  to  do  it. 
Mrs.  Hepzibah  has  seen  the  rising  stock  quotations, 
and  she  thinks  you  are  It." 

"No;  I  can't  go  there  any  more,"  said  Kent,  and 
his  voice  was  gruffer  than  he  meant  it  to  be. 

"Why  not?" 

"There  were  good  reasons  before:  there  are  better 
ones  now." 

"A  seven-hundred-thousand-dollar  difference?"  sug- 
gested Ormsby,  who  had  had  speech  with  Loring. 

Kent  flushed  a  dull  red. 

"I  sha'n't  strike  you,  Ormsby,  no  matter  what  you 
say,"  he  said  doggedly. 

"Humph !  There  is  one  difference  between  you  and 
Rabbi  Balaam's  burro,  David:  it  could  talk  sense,  and 
you  can't,"  was  the  offensive  rejoinder. 

Kent  changed  the  subject  abruptly. 

"Say,  Ormsby;  I'm  going  into  a  political  office-hunt. 
There  is  a  death  vacancy  in  the  House,  and  I  mean 
to  have  the  nomination  and  election.  I  don't  need 
money  now,  but  I  do  need  a  friend.  Are  you  with  me  ?" 

"Oh,  sure.  Miss  Van  Brock  will  answer  for  that." 

"But  I  don't  want  you  to  do  it  on  her  account;  I 
want  you  to  do  it  for  me." 

"It's  all  one,"  said  the  club-man. 

Kent  looked  up  quickly. 

"You  are  right;  that  is  the  truest  word  you've  said 


398  THE   GEAFTEES 

to-night,"  and  he  went  away,  leaving  the  dessert  un- 
touched. 

The  evening  was  still  young  when  Kent  reached  the 
house  in  Alameda  Square.  Within  the  week  the  weather 
had  changed,  and  the  first  chill  of  the  approaching 
autumn  was  in  the  air.  The  great  square  house  was 
lighted  and  warmed,  and  the  homelikeness  of  the  place 
appealed  to  him  as  it  never  had  before.  To  her  other 
gifts,  which  were  many  and  diverse,  Miss  Van  Brock 
added  that  of  home-making;  and  the  aftermath  of 
battle  is  apt  to  be  an  acute  longing  for  peace  and  quiet, 
for  domesticity  and  creature  comforts. 

He  had  not  seen  Portia  since  the  night  when  she  had 
armed  him  for  the  final  struggle  with  the  enemy;  he 
told  himself  that  he  should  not  see  her  again  until  the 
battle  was  fought  and  won.  But  in  no  part  of  the 
struggle  had  he  been  suffered  to  lose  sight  of  his  ob- 
ligation to  her.  He  had  seen  the  chain  lengthen  link 
by  link,  and  now  the  time  was  come  for  the  welding  of 
it  into  a  shackle  to  bind.  He  did  not  try  to  deceive 
himself,  nor  did  he  allow  the  glamour  of  false  senti- 
ment to  blind  him.  With  an  undying  love  for  Elinor 
Brentwood  in  his  heart,  he  knew  well  what  was  before 
him.  None  the  less,  Portia  should  have  her  just  due. 

She  was  waiting  for  him  when  he  entered  the  com- 
fortable library. 

"I  knew  you  would  come  to-night,"  she  said  cheer- 


STTBHI    SADIK  399 

fully.  "I  gave  you  a  day  to  drive  the  nail— and,  0 
David !  you  have  driven  it  well ! — another  day  to  clinch 
it,  and  a  third  to  recover  from  the  effects.  Have  you 
fully  recovered?" 

"I  hope  so.  I  took  the  day  for  it,  at  all  events,"  he 
laughed.  "I  am  just  out  of  bed,  as  you  might  say." 

"I  can  imagine  how  it  took  it  out  of  you,"  she  as- 
sented. "Not  so  much  the  work,  but  the  anxiety. 
Night  before  last,  after  Mr.  Loring  went  away,  I  sat  it 
out  with  the  telephone,  nagging  poor  Mr.  Hildreth  for 
news  until  I  know  he  wanted  to  murder  me." 

"How  much  did  you  get  of  it?"  he  asked. 

"He  told  me  all  he  dared — or  perhaps  it  was  all  he 
knew — and  it  made  me  feel  miserably  helpless.  The 
little  I  could  get  from  the  Argus  office  was  enough  to 
prove  that  all  your  plans  had  been  changed  at  the  last 
moment." 

"They  were,"  he  admitted;  and  he  began  at  the  be- 
ginning and  filled  in  the  details  for  her. 

She  heard  him  through  without  comment  other 
than  a  kindling  of  the  brown  eyes  at  the  climaxes  of 
daring;  but  at  the  end  she  gave  him  praise  unstinted. 

"You  have  played  the  man,  David,  as  I  knew  you 
would  if  you  could  be  once  fully  aroused.  I've  had 
faith  in  you  from  the  very  first." 

"It  has  been  more  than  faith,  Portia,"  he  asserted 
soberly.  "You  have  taken  me  up  and  carried  me  when 


400  THE   GRAFTBES1 

I  could  neither  run  nor  walk.  Do  you  suppose  I  am 
so  besotted  as  not  to  realize  that  you  have  been  the 
head,  while  I  have  been  only  the  hand  ?" 

"Nonsense!"  she  said  lightly.  "You  are  in  the 
dumps  of  the  reaction  now.  You  mustn't  say  things 
that  you  will  be  sorry  for,  later  on." 

"I  am  going  to  say  one  thing,  nevertheless ;  and  will 
remain  for  you  to  make  it  a  thing  hard  to  be  remem- 
bered, or  the  other  kind.  Will  you  take  what  there 
is  of  me  and  make  what  you  can  of  it?" 

She  laughed  in  his  face. 

"No,  my  dear  David ;  no,  no,  no."  And  after  a  little 
pause:  "How  deliciously  transparent  you  are,  to  be 
sure !" 

He  would  have  been  less  than  a  man  if  his  self-love 
had  not  been  touched  in  its  most  sensitive  part. 

"I  am  glad  if  it  amuses  you,"  he  frowned.  "Only 
I  meant  it  in  all  seriousness." 

"No,  you  didn't;  you  only  thought  you  did,"  she 
contradicted,  and  the  brown  eyes  were  still  laughing  at 
him.  "Let  me  tell  you  what  you  did  mean.  You  are 
pleased  to  think  that  I  have  helped  you — that  an  obli- 
gation has  been  incurred;  and  you  meant  to  pay  your 
debt  like  a  man  and  a  gentleman  in  the  only  coin  a 
woman  is  supposed  to  recognize." 

"But  if  I  should  say  that  you  are  misinterpreting 
the  motive?"  he  suggested. 


STJBHI    SADIK  401 

"It  would  make  your  nice  little  speech  a  perjury  in- 
stead of  a  simple  untruth,  and  I  should  say  no,  again, 
on  other,  and  perhaps  better,  grounds." 

"Name  them,"  he  said  shortly. 

"I  will,  David,  though  I  am  neither  a  stick  nor  a 
stone  to  do  it  without  wincing.  You  love  another 
woman  with  all  your  heart  and  soul,  and  you  know  it." 

"Well?  You  see  I  am  neither  admitting  nor  deny- 
ing." 

"As  if  you  needed  to !"  she  scoffed.  "But  don't  inter- 
rupt me,  please.  You  said  I  might  take  what  there  is 
of  you  and  make  what  I  can  of  it:  I  might  make  you 
anything  and  everything  in  the  world,  David,  except 
that  which  a  woman  craves  most  in  a  husband — a  lover." 

His  eyes  grew  dark. 

"I  wish  I  knew  how  much  that  word  means  to  you, 
Portia." 

"It  means  just  as  much  to  me  as  it  does  to  every 
woman  who  has  ever  drawn  the  breath  of  life  in  a  pas- 
sionate world,  David.  But  that  isn't  all.  Leaving  Miss 
Brentwood  entirely  out  of  the  question,  you'd  be  mis-i 
erably  unhappy." 

"Why  should  I?" 

"Because  I  shouldn't  be  able  to  realize  a  single  one  of 
your  ideals.  I  know  what  they  are— what  you  will  ex- 
pect in  a  wife.  I  could  make  you  a  rich  man,  a  suc- 
cessful man,  as  the  world  measures  success,  and  perhaps 


402  THE   GRAFTERS 

I  could  even  give  you  love :  after  the  first  flush  of  youth 
is  past,  the  heavenly-affinity  sentiment  loses  its  hold 
and  a  woman  comes  to  know  that  if  she  cares  to  try  hard 
enough  she  can  love  any  man  who  will  be  thoughtful 
and  gentle,  and  whose  habits  of  life  are  not  hopelessly  at 
war  with  her  own.  But  that  kind  of  love  doesn't  breed 
love.  Your  vanity  would  pique  itself  for  a  little  while, 
and  then  you  would  know  the  curse  of  unsought  love 
and  murder  me  in  your  heart  a  thousand  times  a  day. 
No,  David,  I  have  read  you  to  little  purpose  if  these  are 
the  things  you  will  ask  of  the  woman  who  takes  your 
name  and  becomes  the  mother  of  your  children."  She 
had  risen  and  was  standing  beside  his  chair,  with  her 
hand  lightly  touching  his  shoulder.  crWill  you  go  now  ? 
There  are  others  coming,  and — " 

He  made  his  adieux  gravely  and  went  away  half 
dazed  and  a  prey  to  many  emotions,  but  strangely  light- 
hearted  withal:  and  as  once  before,  he  walked  when  he 
might  have  ridden.  But  the  mixed-emotion  mood  was 
not  immortal.  At  the  Clarendon  he  found  a  committee 
of  Civic  Leaguers  waiting  to  ask  him  if  he  would  stand 
as  a  "Good  Government"  candidate  in  the  special  elec- 
tion to  fill  the  House  vacancy  in  the  capital  district; 
and  in  the  discussion  of  ways  and  means,  and  the  set- 
ting of  political  pins  which  followed  there  was  little 
food  for  sentiment. 


STJBHI    SADIK  403 

It  was  three  weeks  and  more  after  Governor  Mars- 
ton's  call  summoning  the  Assembly  for  an  investiga- 
tive session.  Kent  had  fought  his  way  triumphantly 
through  the  special  election  to  a  seat  in  the  House, 
aided  and  abetted  manfully  by  Ormsby,  Hildreth,  and 
the  entire  Trans- Western  influence  and  vote.  And  now 
men  were  beginning  to  say  that  without  the  tireless 
blows  of  the  keen-witted,  sharp-tongued  young  corpo- 
ration lawyer,  the  junto  might  still  have  reasserted  it- 
self. 

But  the  House  committee,  of  which  Kent  was  the 
youngest  member  and  the  chairman,  had  proved  incor- 
ruptible, and  the  day  of  the  Gaston  wolf-pack  was  over. 
Hendricks  resigned,  to  escape  a  worse  thing;  Meigs 
came  over  to  the  majority  with  a  show  of  heartiness  that 
made  Kent  doubly  watchful  of  him;  heads  fell  to  the 
right  and  left,  until  at  the  last  there  was  left  only  one 
member  of  the  original  cabal  to  reckon  with;  the  ju- 
dicial tool  of  the  capitol  ring. 

Kent  had  hesitated  when  MacFarlane's  name  came 
up ;  and  the  judge  never  knew  that  he  owed  his  escape 
from  the  inquisitorial  House  committee,  and  his  per- 
mission to  resign  on  the  plea  of  broken  health,  to  a 
young  woman  whom  he  had  never  seen. 

It  was  Elinor  Brentwood  who  was  his  intercessor; 
and  the  occasion  was  the  last  day  of  the  third  week 


404  THE    GRAFTEES 

of  the  extra  session — a  Saturday  afternoon  and  a  legis- 
lative recess  when  Kent  had  borrowed  Ormsby's  auto- 
car, and  had  driven  Elinor  and  Penelope  out  to  Pent- 
land  Place  to  look  at  a  house  he  was  thinking  of  buy- 
ing. For  with  means  to  indulge  it,  Kent's  Gaston- 
bred  mania  for  plunging  in  real  estate  had  returned 
upon  him  with  all  the  acuteness  of  a  half-satisfied  pas- 
sion. 

They  had  gone  all  over  the  house  and  grounds  with 
the  caretaker,  and  when  there  was  nothing  more  to  see, 
Penelope  had  prevailed  on  the  woman  to  open  the 
Venetians  in  the  music-room.  There  was  a  grand  piano 
in  the  place  of  honor,  presided  over  by  a  mechanical 
piano-player;  and  Penelope  went  into  ecstasies  of 
mockery. 

"Wait  till  I  can  find  the  music  scrolls,  and  I'll  hyp- 
notize you,"  she  said  gleefully;  and  Kent  and  Elinor 
beat  a  hasty  retreat  to  the  wide  entrance  hall. 

"I  don't  quite  understand  it,"  was  Elinor's  comment, 
when  they  had  put  distance  between  themselves  and 
Penelope's  joyous  grinding-out  of  a  Wagner  scroll. 
"It  looks  as  if  the  owners  had  just  walked  out  at  a 
moment's  notice." 

"They  did,"  said  Kent.  "They  went  to  Europe,  I 
believe.  And  by  the  way;  I  think  I  have  a  souvenir 
here  somewhere.  Will  you  go  up  to  the  first  landing 
of  the  stair  and  point  your  finger  at  that  window  ?" 


STJBHI   SADIK  405 

She  did  it,  wondering;  and  when  he  had  the  line  of 
direction  he  knelt  in  the  cushioned  window-seat  and 
began  to  probe  with  the  blade  of  his  pen-knife  in  a 
small  round  hole  in  the  woodwork. 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked,  coming  down  to  stand  be- 
side him. 

"This."  He  had  cut  out  a  flattened  bullet  and  was 
holding  it  up  for  her  to  see.  "It  was  meant  for  me, 
and  I've  always  had  an  idea  that  I  heard  it  strike  the 
woodwork." 

"For  you?  Were  you  ever  here  when  the  house  was 
occupied  ?" 

"Yes,  once;  it  is  the  Senator  Duvall  place.  This 
is  the  window  where  I  broke  in." 

She  nodded  intelligence. 

"I  know  now  why  you  are  going  to  buy  it.  The 
senator  is  another  of  those  whom  you  haven't  forgiven." 

His  laugh  was  a  ready  denial. 

"I  have  nothing  against  Duvall.  He  was  one  of 
Bucks'  dupes,  and  he  is  paying  the  price.  The  prop- 
erty is  to  be  sold  at  a  forced  sale,  and  it  is  a  good  in- 
vestment." 

"Is  that  all  it  means  to  you?  It  is  too  fine  to  be 
hawked  about  as  a  thing  to  make  money  with.  It's  a 
splendidly  ideal  home — leaving  out  that  thing  that 
Penelope  is  quarreling  with."  ^nd  she  made  a  feint 
of  stopping  her  ears. 


406  THE   GEAFTERS 

He  laughed  again. 

"Ormsby  says  I  ought  to  buy  it,  and  marry  and 
settle  down." 

She  took  him  seriously. 

"You  don't  need  it.  Miss  Van  Brock  has  a  very 
lovely  home  of  her  own/'  she  said  soberly. 

It  was  at  his  tongue's  end  to  tell  the  woman  he  loved 
how  the  woman  he  did  not  love  had  refused  him,  but 
he  saved  himself  on  the  brink  and  said : 

"Why  Miss  Van  Brock?" 

"Because  she  is  vindictive,  too,  and — " 

"But  I  am  not  vindictive." 

"Yes,  you  are.  Do  you  know  anything  about  Judge 
MacFarlane's  family  affairs?" 

"A  little.  He  has  three  daughters;  one  of  them 
rather  unhappily  married,  I  believe." 

"Have  you  considered  the  cost  to  these  three  women 
if  you  make  their  father's  name  a  byword  in  the  city 
where  they  were  born?" 

"He  should  have  considered  it,"  was  the  unmoved 
reply. 

"David !"  she  said ;  and  he  looked  up  quickly. 

"You  want  me  to  let  him  resign  ?  It  would  be  com- 
pounding a  felony.  He  is  a  judge,  and  he  was  bribed." 

She  sat  down  beside  him  in  the  cushioned  window 
seat  and  began  to  plead  with  him. 

"You  must  let  him  go,"  she  insisted.   "It  is  entirely 


STJBHI   SADIK  407 

in  your  hands  as  chairman  of  the  House  committee; 
the  governor,  himself,  told  me  so.  I  know  all  you  say 
about  him  is  true ;  but  he  is  old  and  wretched,  with  only 
a  little  while  to  live,  at  best." 

There  was  a  curious  little  smile  curling  his  lip  when 
he  answered  her. 

"He  has  chosen  a  good  advocate.  It  is  quite  like  a 
man  of  his  stamp  to  try  to  reach  me  through  you." 

"David!"  she  said  again.  Then:  "I  really  shouldn't 
know  him  if  I  were  to  see  him." 

"Then  why — "  he  began;  but  there  was  a  love-light 
in  the  blue-gray  eyes  to  set  his  heart  afire.  "You  are 
doing  this  for  me?"  he  said,  trembling  on  the  verge 
of  things  unutterable. 

"Yes.  You  don't  know  how  it  hurts  me  to  see  you 
growing  hard  and  merciless  as  you  climb  higher  and 
higher  in  the  path  you  have  marked  out  for  yourself." 

"The  path  you  have  marked  out  for  me,"  he  cor- 
rected. "Do  you  remember  our  little  talk  over  the  em- 
bers of  the  fire  in  your  sitting-room  at  home?  I  knew 
then  that  I  had  lost  the  love  I  might  have  won ;  but  the 
desire  to  be  the  kind  of  leader  you  were  describing 
was  born  in  me  at  that  moment.  I  haven't  always  been 
true  to  the  ideal.  I  couldn't  be,  lacking  the  right  to 
wear  your  colors  on  my  heart — " 

"Don't!"  she  said.  "I  haven't  been  true  to  my 
ideals.  I — I  sold  them,  David !" 


408  THE    GRAFTERS 

She  was  in  his  arms  when  she  said  it,  and  the  bache- 
lor maid  was  quite  lost  in  the  woman. 

"I'll  never  believe  that,"  he  said  loyally.  "But  if 
you  did,  we'll  buy  them  back — together." 

Penelope  was  good  to  them.  It  was  a  full  half-hour 
before  she  professed  herself  satisfied  with  the  mechani- 
cal piano-toy;  and  when  she  was  through,  she  helped 
the  woman  caretaker  to  shut  the  Venetians  with  clang- 
ings  that  would  have  warned  the  most  oblivious  pair 
of  lovers. 

And  afterward,  when  they  were  free  of  the  house,  she 
ran  ahead  to  the  waiting  auto-car,  leaving  Kent  and 
Elinor  to  follow  at  a  snail's  pace  down  the  leaf -covered 
walk  to  the  gate.  There  was  a  cedar  hedge  to  mark 
the  sidewalk  boundary,  and  while  it  still  screened  them 
Kent  bent  quickly  to  the  upturned  face  of  happiness. 

"One  more,"  he  pleaded;  and  when  he  had  it:  "Do 
you  know  now,  dearest,  why  I  brought  you  here  to-day  ?" 

She  nodded  joyously. 

"It  is  the  sweetest  old  place.  And,  David,  dear; 
we'll  bring  our  ideals — all  of  them ;  and  it  shall  be  your 
haven  when  the  storms  beat." 


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